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FME BEi!EF IN GOD
AND IMMORTALITY
JAMES' H LEUBA
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BERKELEY^
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA
^
THE BELIEF IN GOD
AND IMMORTALITY
A Ps-gcholo^ical, Anthropological
and Statistical Stuci:g
BY
JAMES H. LEUBA
Professor of Psychology in Bryn Mawr College
Author of " A Psychological Study of Religion ;
its Origin, Function and Future."
a^t^it^^^^
CHICAGO— LONDON
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
1921
LOAN STAC^
Copyright, 1916
Copyright, 1921
Open Court Publishing Co.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BD4<ll
I , '
TO
MY WIFE
5^88
cCormlch IE state
to Be Mecca for Cult
Society Devotee Takes Lake Forest
Home for Psychic School Seat.
Mrs. Ildilh Iloc-kcfcHl'^r McCorniick is
to establish her long-planned school of
synllietic psychology on the famous
McCormick estate in Lake Forest, near
Chicago.
Mrs. McCormick. who i
John D. RockefeUer. has taken posses-
sion of the beautiful Lake Forest res-
idence, which Avas given to her- under
the terms of the f(^cent •divorce from
f-Tarold F. McCormick. pr'dfident of the-
International Harvester Co.
It was learned that the Lake Forest
estate would soon be the American
inecca for devotees of psycho-analysis, j
The n«w school of thought will be based
on the experiments of Dr. Carl Jung, the
noted Austrian psychologist. Mrs.
McCorniick is credited with having col-
laborated Avith him in evolvirj^' , the doc-
trine of synthetic psychology 'which she
will teach at the school. . '
'•|'\inctional distur'bances of our va-
rious organs disappear as if by magic
once a correct mental i:»oise has been es-
tablished," she has said.
"But until the psychological time
comes synthetic psychology must appear
as an iceberg in the sea if humanity.
I will know when the time comes."
Mrs. McCormick has described herself
as a "surgeon of souls." She said her
Switzerland cures w>fcre accomplished by
daily examination of the dreams of
patients.
tItaN '^EIVER~ PflOT DEAD
N^
T
igai
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met
-i^^v, TTnH
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
God, the soul, and immortality constitute, accord-
ing to general opinion, the great framework of re-
ligion. In an earlier book I have considered the
origin, the nature, the function, and the future of
the belief in what I have called ''personal'' gods.
The present volume is, in the main, a similar study
of the belief in personal immortality. Chapters one
to five treat of the origin, the nature, and the func-
tion of that belief. They show in particular that
two quite different conceptions of personal immor-
tality have been successively elaborated; and that
the modern conception is not a growth from the
primary belief, but an independent creation, differ-
ing radically from it in point of origin, in nature,
and in function. Whereas the primarj^ belief was
forced upon men irrespective of their wishes as an
unavoidable interpretation of certain patent facts
(chiefly, probably, the apparition of deceased per-
sons in dreams and in visions), the modern belief
was born of a desire for the realization of ideals.
The first came to point to an exclusively wretched
existence, and prompted men to guard aga^'nst the
possible danger to them arising from ghosts; the
second contemplated from the first endless continua-
tion in a state of completed or increased perfection,
and incited the living to ceaseless efforts in order to
make themselves fit for that blessed consummation.
The effort that has been made to justify at the
bar of reason the modern belief in immortality by
V
PREFACE -
providing metaphysical proofs of it, is considered
in chapter five. From a survey of these "proofs'*
it is evident that the longer we strive to demonstrate
its truth, the more obvious becomes our failure. We
shall see that even firm believers in immortality
have had to come to this opinion.
Deductive reasoning having failed, an attempt
is now being made to demonstrate personal immor-
tality by methods acceptable to science. This effort
— mainly the work of the Society for Psychical Re-
search — is summarily described and appraised in
the last chapter of Part I.
It would of course be most helpful, both to scien-
tific students of religion and to ministers of it, did
there exist definite information regarding the pres-
ent diffusion of cardinal religious beliefs among the
civilized nations. Heretofore most divergent opin-
ions have prevailed ; and it has been possible neither
to prove nor to refute them, since the statistics of
belief so far attempted have no actual statistical
value whatever. In Part II, the present status in the
United States of the beliefs in God and immortality
is shown as it appears from extensive statistical
inquiries in which the usual fatal defects of statisti-
cal researches in the field of religious beliefs have
been avoided. These inquiries have yielded results
of considerable significance; we are now for the
first time in a position to make certain definite state-
ments, valid for entire groups of influential persons,
namely, college students, physical scientists, biolo-
gists, historians, sociologists and economists, and
psychologists. We have been able not only to com-
vi
PREFACE
pare these groups with each other but also the lower
classes of students with the higher, and the more
eminent persons of the other groups with the less
eminent. It appears, with incontrovertible evi-
dence, that in each one of these groups the more dis-
tinguished fraction includes by far the smaller
number of believers. This, taken in connection with
a study of the factors of belief, leads to important
conclusions regarding the causes of disbelief. I
hope that despite the widespread and, I must admit,
on the whole justifiable distrust of statistics of be-
lief, no reader will pass a summary judgment upon
mine until he has examined them with some care.
The numerous and extraordinarily varied com-
ments made by those who answered the author's
questionnaire, as well as by those who refused to
answer it, provide data of especial value for the psy-
chology of belief and for an understanding of the
present situation of the Christian religion. Not only
in Part II, but throughout the book, I have cited
typical, concrete instances in profusion. By thus
following a practice common in descriptive sciences,
I have, I trust, kept close to reality and avoided the
theoretical and empty character from which so
many works on religion suffer.
In a third and last part are presented certain
facts and considerations bearing upon the utility of
the beliefs in a personal God and in immortality,
from which it appears that, so far at least as the
United States and other equally civilized countries
are concerned, the enormous practical importance
customarily ascribed to these beliefs does not
vii
PREFACE
correspond to reality. Since the study of origins
and motives shows that the attributes which
make gods and life after death precious to mankind
are derived from social experience, it is evident that
the loss of these beliefs would involve the loss not of
anything essential, but only of a particular method
(that of the present religions) of maintaining and
increasing among men certain values created and
discovered in social intercourse. What the real
losses would be, and whether they might be compen-
sated or even turned to gain, constitute the chief
topics of the concluding section.
It is often urged that studies of origins and mo-
tives do not yield information bearing upon the
probable truth of beliefs. This opinion should be
corrected. When the methods of philosophy are im-
potent to determine '* truth," our only recourse is
to a verification by experience, as in the case of
scientific hypotheses, and to a study of origins and
motives. There are circumstances where acquaint-
ance with the origin of a belief bring down to a
vanishing point the probability of its truth.
A word of explanation is probably necessary in
order to prevent misunderstanding of the scope of
this study. My investigation of immortality bears
upon " personal immortality " only. I take this
term in its ordinary acceptation, i. e., as meaning
a continuation after death (with or without body)
of the consciousness of personal identity. Similarly,
I am concerned, as in my earlier book, only with
that conception of the divine which I have qualified
viii
PREFACE
by the term " personal." My purpose does not
oblige me to define the meaning I attach to that
difficult word when applied to gods, further than to
say that it designates beings with whom can be
maintained the relations implied in all the historical
religions in which a God or gods are worshipped,
i. e., direct intellectual and affective relations. A
personal God as here understood is therefore not
necessarily an anthropomorphic, but certainly an
anthropopathic being.
Few words are used in as wide and ill-defined a
meaning as " god," for few are willing to forego the
prestigeous advantage belonging to its use; and so
it has come to pass that a term owing its primary
meaning to its connection with historical religions
has come to be used in another meaning. The con-
ception of Ultimate Reality as it is found in the phi-
losophy of Absolute Idealism, and by it called God,
is no more adequate to the expectations of any ex-
isting form of worship than the alchemist's con-
ception of matter is adequate to the work of modern
science.' The confusion of these two meanings
should not be tolerated, not even though it should
prove impracticable to limit the use of the term
*' god " to its original significance. That this con-
fusion is in fact tolerated, and even, it seems, en-
^ That the gods of metaphysics are not the gods of re-
ligion, is clearly acknowledged by Arthur Balfour in his last
book (Theism and Humanism, Gifford Lectures for 1914,
page 35, 36). I quote: "It is God according to religion,
and not the God according to metaphysics, whose being I
wish to prove. . . . When I speak of God, I mean some-
thing other than an Identity wherein all differences vanish,
or a Unity which includes but does not transcend the differ-
ences which it somehow holds in solution. I mean a God
ix
PREFACE
couraged, is not due only to the lack of a sufRcently
clear realization of the essential difference existing
between the gods of the historical religions and the
** gods " of metaphysics, but in an equal measure
perhaps to an unwillingness to admit an unwelcome
truth. There are devoted Christians who appar-
ently prefer living in intellectual dishonesty to rec-
ognizing that the God whom they worship has no
existence in their philosophy.
It hardly need be said here that the abandonment
of the belief in a personal God and in personal im-
mortality, though it involved the disappearance of
the existing religions, need not bring to an end re-
ligious life. Religion is not to be identified with its
present forms. The faith of the ancient Hebrews,
which looked only to the continuation of the nation,
refutes sufficiently the opinion according to which
the immortal individual soul is a tenet necessary to
all religions. While original Buddhism, which de-
nies the existence of a personal God, and Comte's
Religion of Humanity, which includes among its
articles of faith neither personal God nor soul,
demonstrate the possible independence of religion
from the belief in a personal God. The sources of
religious life, its fundamental realities, lie deeper
v/hom men can love, a God to whom men can pray, who takes
sides, who has purposes and preferences, whose attributes,
however conceived, leave unimpaired the possibility of a per-
sonal relation between Himself and those whom He has cre-
ated."
For a demonstration of the correctness of this distinction,
see chapter XI, especially pages 245 to 254, of my earlier
book, A Psychological Study of Religion; Its Origin, Function
and Future. — Macmillan, 1912.
X
PREFACE
than the conceptional forms in which they find ex-
pression.
To regard this book as merely destructive because
it offers no sufficient ground for belief in immor-
tality, and because the statistics presented demon-
strate an alienation from beliefs present in all the
historical religions (Comtism and original Buddh-
ism excepted) and provide reasons for anticipating
a continuous decrease of these beliefs, would be to
overlook its essential results, namely, the analysis
both of the fundamental motives and of the sec-
ondary causes which have led to the formation of
the primary^ belief in immortality, to its subsequent
displacement by the modern belief, and which at
the present time prompt many of those most sensi-
tive to moral values to seek elsewhere than in the
continuation of the identity of the Ego the satisfac-
tion of spiritual needs. To uncover the deeper
sources from which spring the varied forms of our
religious life, even when this involves laying bare
the uncertainty or inadequacy of old and widely ac-
cepted convictions, cannot with justice be character-
ized as a merely destructive performance. Rather
should it be regarded, from a practical point of view,
as tending to accomplish a threefold good: the de-
liverance of man from a devitalizing fear of imagi-
nary disastrous consequences that are to attend the
loss of these beliefs; his inspiration with renewed
confidence in the reliability of the forces by which
he feels himself urged onward, however ignorant of
their nature he may otherwise be; and his enrich-
xi
PREFACE
ment with information useful for the wise guidance
of his efforts at reconstructions when reconstruction
shall have appeared imperative.
Parts II and III may be read independently of
Part I, but the full weight of the investigation will
not be felt by those who have omitted the first part.
I take pleasure in acknowledging here the valu-
able assistance received from Miss Edith Orlady in
the preparation of this book.
Xll
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
The first edition of this book, published in 1916
by Sherman, French & Co., was exhausted in the
course of a little more than a year. That firm hav-
ing gone out of business, the Open Court Pub-
lishing Company have undertaken the publication
of the new edition. The book remains practically
what it was; the changes that have been made are
few and none of them of much importance.
H: ^ ^ ^ Ht »K ^
My main purpose in writing this second preface
is to remove two misunderstandings. It seems,
however, worth while to append brief notes upon the
reception given to this book, for they indicate with
some precision how far we are from having achieved
the degree of intellectual freedom on which we com-
monly pride ourselves. Even among men devoted to
the advancement of science, the weight of tradition
remains a powerful hindrance to the quest and the
diffusion of religious knowledge.
H< H: H: 4: ^ :(< %
The first of the misunderstandings to which I
have alluded, arose about the main generalization
of Part I. I attempted there to demonstrate that,
leaving the Hindoo world out of reckoning, there
are two conceptions of survival after death that
differ radically from each other both with regard
to their origin and their function. The older — the
Primary — is apparently universal among non-civil-
ized societies; the other — the Modern — took shape
xiii
PREFACE
when and where the Primary belief was dying out,
It was dying out at the beginning of the historical
period among the nations established around the
eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea.
The motives that led to the appearance of the
Primary Conception of survival are experiences
having for the savage the validity of ordinary sense
perception ; he sees, hears, and " feels *' the presence
of ghosts. His belief in them is not, therefore, the
product of aversion to annihilation and of yearn-
ings for moral self-realization; that man survives
as a ghost is a fact accepted by him on the same
kind of ground as the existence of natural objects.
Quite otherwise was it with the origin of the Mod-
ern Conception; it had to be won out of the depths
of man's moral experience; it is a child of craving
for rationality, for justice, and for happiness.
Neither the reality nor the importance of this
distinction between a Primary and a Modern Con-
ception of continuation after death has been de-
nied; but some of my critics were of the opinion
that I have emphasized unduly the difference when
I have described it as *' radical ". According to
them, I have not given sufficient recognition to cer-
tain motives for belief that are common to the two
forms ; for instance, the desires for the continuation
of a sympathetic relation with the departed and for
one's own happiness in the future life. These critics
have forgotten, it seems, that under the heading
" The tife of Ghosts and Their Relation to the Liv-
ing; the Primary Paradise " (pp. 15-24, especially 20
xiv
PREFACE
ff), I have described and illustrated, briefly it is
true but quite definitely, the presence among some
savages of these very motives, i. e., of motives of the
Kmd to which the Modern belief owes its origin. I
did not affirm that these two classes of motives —
pseudo-perceptions or deductions from observed
facts and moral yearnings — had never been present
together so as to produce a composite conception.
On the contrary, I drew attention to the paradisiacal
elements in certain primitive beliefs in the here-
after. But I insisted that these two kinds of motives
are entirely different in nature, that they need not
be present together, and that as a matter of fact the
Primary motives gave to the early conception its
dominant character.
I had also to take into account an historical fact
of great significance, namely, the final form assumed
by the early belief in survival after death among the
nations from which the western world has derived
its civilization, i. e., the nations situated around the
eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt, Baby-
lonia, Palestine, and Greece. At the beginning of
the historical period, before the Modern Conception
had taken shape, the hereafter was pictured among
these nations as the abode of inactive, ineffective,
and unhappy shades. With them, the living main-
tained no sympathetic relation whatsoever; dread
or repugnance only was felt by the living for the
fate in store for them. There is, thus, incontroverti-
ble evidence that in so far as the countries in which
the Modern Conception arose are concerned, the
influence of desire upon the idea of the hereafter,
XV
PREFACE
apparent here and there among savages, was finally
eliminated ; and that the conception of the future life
became the expression exclusively of what I have
called the Primary motives. It does not therefore
seem an exaggeration to describe as " radical " the
difference in origin and in function existing between
the repulsive and depressing Primary belief and the
glorious and inspiring Modern belief.
*******
The second explanation I wish to make refers to
the statements of belief in God and immortality
us£d in preparing the statistics. If these statements
brought out the facts which they were intended to
bring out, they must be regarded as adequate. That
they did not bring out other facts is irrelevant,
however important these other facts might be. I did
not want to find out what proportion of the mem-
bers of the several classes selected for investigation
(American physical scientists, biological scientists,
historians, sociologists, psychologists, and college
students of non-technical departments) believed in
the Absolute of Bradley or in that of Royce, or in
Bergson's Elan Vital, or in RashdalPs limited God,
or in any other of the God-conceptions known to
philosophers. Had I entertained that purpose, I
should have failed; for, probably not one in a hun-
dred of the men belonging to the classes named
would have been in a position to answer the finely
discriminating questions that would have been nec-
essary. My purpose had reference not to philosophy
but to religion as it actually exists among us in its
organized forms; i. e., I desired to determine with
xvi
PREFACE
some degree of accuracy the percentages of believ-
ers and of non-believers (disbelievers and doubters)
in personal immortality and in a God able and, under
certain undetermined conditions, willing to act upon
man or nature or both, at man's desire, request,
or in accordance with his desert.
H: ***** *
The profound significance to the existing religions
of the statistical inquiry reported in Part II of this
book needs no demonstration. Christian worship,
in all its varieties, the Unitarian not excepted, im-
plies the direct, intellectual and affective communi-
cation of man with God, in the definite form which
communication takes between man and man : i. e.,
an exchange of ideas and feelings and an expression
of desires and intentions accompanied by the con-
viction that God may grant request or desire,
whether it be a change of weather, a cure of disease,
or a deliverance from moral evil. Abandonment of
that direct personal relation would so materially
transform the existing religions as to make them
unrecognizable. It would usher in a new epoch in
the religious history of mankind. If this be true,
the statistics point indeed to things momentous.
What form religion can take when this personal
relation with God is given up, is not one of the prob-
lems I set myself to answer. Some hints may be
found, however, in my earlier volume and in Part
III of the present one. An increasing number of
religious leaders, writing from what they regard as
the '* Christian '' point of view, are as a matter of
fact endeavoring to formulate a religion in which
xvii
PREFACE
the traditional Christian God is exchanged for a
God-belief in agreement with present knowledge.
The practices of minimizing differences, accentuat-
ing agreements, and of pouring new wine into old
bottles — practices that have always been approved
as strategically valuable — leaves the average church
attendant unaware of the distance to which these
leaders have really strayed from established creeds
and worship. It is not apparent that the leaders
themselves realize their position. Because their
new view leaves standing the Christian virtues, they
speak as if no essential change had taken place in
their religion and as if none need take place in their
worship ! Such a person is a Unitarian minister who
declared, in a published address inspired by these
statistics, that " the popular conception of ' direct '
answer to prayer " is '* no test of the Christian faith
of the present day '*. He may be right in that
affirmation ; many make it. But then, why continue
the use of prayer books and hymnologies, every line
of which implies the " popular conception " ?
Professor James B. Pratt does not misrepresent
Professor Ames in writing, *' I fear the religious
reader of The Psychology of Religious Experience '
will find cold comfort after all when he learns that
the only God who exists is just human society's
longings and ideals and values, and that He cannot
even viean anything more than that '\ ' For Pro-
fessor Ames, religion is " the consciousness of the
' A book by Professor Edward Scribner Ames.
" The Religious Consciousness, p. 208.
xviii
PREFACE
highest social values ". Social-mindedness is re-
ligious mindedness. " All moral ideals are relig-
ious in the degree in which they are expressions of
great vital interests of society." '' It would be no
exaggeration to say that all ceremonies in which
the whole group co-operates with keen emotional
interests are religious." ' To use '* religion " in
that way is to transform its meaning beyond all
recognition.
Professor Pratt's own opinion may be gathered
from these words, '* Objective worship of the sort
that aims to please the Deity is a thing of the past.
The modern man cannot even attempt to participate
in it without conscious hypocrisy." Nevertheless,
according to him, objective worship remains pos-
sible in the form of '' reverence, combined perhaps
with consecration and a suggestion of communion,
which most thoughtful men must feel in the pres-
ence of the Cosmic forces and in reflecting upon
them. Such was the attitude of Spinoza and Her-
bert Spencer." ' Is reverence for the Cosmic forces
the emotional attitude that inspired the creeds and
the prayer books? Did Spinoza and Spencer find it
possible to join in the accepted Christian public
worship? We are here far away from Christian
worship.
Other distinguished writers on the psychology" of
religion, unwilling to do away with traditional
prayer, say in substance, " God acts through His
' Edward Scribner Ames, the Psychology of Religions Ex-
perience, pp. 10, 285-287, 72.
* The Religious Consciousness , 1920. Page 308.
xix
PREFACE
laws. Man's own natural response to his prayer is
God's way of answering him " — which means that
the natural effect of one's belief upon one's thoughts
and emotions is God's answer. Thus understood,
the result of prayer can be said to be a "divine an-
swer " only at the risk of utter confusion.
The word " reconstruction " is on the lips of
everybody. A primary condition of religious recon-
struction is a sufficiently widespread realization that
the crumbling religious structures in which we are
still dwelling have ceased to keep us spiritually
warm: Those who are acquainted with the social
sciences realize that the disbelief of the present, re-
garding the central assumption of the organized
religions (a God in direct relation with man), is of
a different temper from the disbelief of the past.
It has gained the quality belonging to things firmly
established, the quality which attaches, for instance,
to the doctrine of evolution since Darwin's labors.
Another condition of effective religious recon-
struction is a widespread establishment of the con-
viction that belief in the traditional God is not a
primary source of spiritual worth and moral in-
spiration, but that moral values come into existence
in social relationship, as a natural and unavoidable
consequence of the nature of man.
These conditions once realized, the way would be
prepared for the acceptance of a conception of the
XX
PREFACE
divine that would not be opposed to the teachings of
modern science.'
Bryn Mawr, Pa., May, 1921.
^ Frequent wrong inferences makes it advisable to say
here that if disbelief in a God in direct intellectual and af-
fective communication with man is widespread and prob-
ably rapidly increasing, it does not follow that the dis-
believers have turned to materialistic philosophies. On the
contrary, many if not most of them have exchanged the
traditional God for forms of spiritual belief possessing a
higher ethical significance.
XXI
NOTES UPON THE RECEPTION GIVEN TO
THE FIRST EDITION OF THIS BOOK
In the Roman Catholic press no attempt what-
ever was made at a serious criticism of the book.
The statistics (Part II) were in many instances ac-
cepted uncritically at their face value, usually with
ill-concealed gratification at the demonstration they
were held to provide of the " godlessness " of non-
Catholic education. A certain American Cardinal,
for example, found these statistics useful as a goad
to urge his flock to a more zealous support of
parochial schools. In other instances, sweeping and
unsupported denials were made of the validity of
the statistics. " True scientists '' doggedly affirmed
an influencial Roman Catholic weekly, " are be-
lievers " — this in the face of the statement of over
half the men listed in "American Men of Science "
that they are disbelievers or non-believers in God,
as defined for the purpose of the investigation!
The attitude of the less important protestant re-
ligious reviews was only one degree less careless of
the facts in the case: that which agreed with their
beliefs, they approved; and, that which disagreed
they condemned. Strikingly different in temper
were the critical notices of the more technical
protestant theological journals. The liberalism and
the scientific spirit of, for instance, the American
Journal of Theology and the Harvard Theological
Review, make a striking contrast with the dogmatic
xxii
NOTES
medievalism of many of the lesser journals. It looks
as if the leaders had so far outstripped the rank
and file as to have lost contact with them.
It is deserving of notice that certain influential
secular reviews, devoting considerable space to re-
ligion, either maintained complete silence about the
book or merely announced its appearance, this in
spite of the fact that lengthy notices in the daily
press indicate that at least the Statistical Part pos-
sesses considerable interest for the average reader.
But if this silence is distressing in popular maga-
zines, it is still more so when it is maintained by
exclusively scientific journals. Science, for instance,
failed to review the book and refused a brief ac-
count of the statistics prepared by the author, al-
though the editor acknowledged that the results
were of much interest and scientific in character,
and that his own attitude in refusing to print the
report was " not scientific.'' If a scientific investi-
gation which has attracted widespread attention and
which directly concerns American men of science is
not to be considered in the oflflcial journal of the
allied sciences, where is it to be discussed? Is there,
even among men of science so little dispassionate-
ness with regard to religious beliefs that they can-
not be trusted to treat scientifically a scientific in-
vestigation bearing upon religious questions?
xxiu
CONTENTS
PART I
THE TWO CONCEPTIONS OF IMMORTALITY :
THEIR ORIGINS, THEIR DIFFERENT CHAR-
ACTERISTICS, AND THE ATTEMPTED DEM-
ONSTRATION OF THE TRUTH OF THE MOD-
ERN CONCEPTION
I THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PRIMARY
BELIEF IN CONTINUATION AFTER
DEATH 1
When did the belief in primary continuation
appear? — The savage's idea of soul and ghost
— The survival after death and immortality —
The life of ghosts and their relation with the
living; the primary paradise — Explanation
of the fear of ghosts and of the e\'il character
usually ascribed to them — Conditions of ad-
mission to the other world and the relation of
morality to continuation after death — Mor-
ality and religion.
II THE ORIGIN OF THE GHOST-IDEA, AND
THE DIFFERENTIATION OF THE GHOST
FROM THE SOUL 44
I. The origin of the ghost-idea — Memory-
images exteriorized under the influence of emo-
tion — The " sense of presence " — Dreams —
Visions — The natural endlessness of man —
The influence of death — Vegetation and insect
metamorphosis — The waxing and the waning
moon ; the rising and the setting sun — Physi-
cal and moral likenesses between a living and
a dead person — Reflections and echoes — The
instinct theory of the origin of the belief in
continuation — II. The differentiation of the
ghost from the soul — III. The origin of the
soul as set forth by Durkheim in his theory of
the origin of the idea of the soul-ghost —
Crawley's and Feuerbach's theories.
XXV
CONTENTS
III THE PRIMARY BELIEF IN CONTINUATION
AFTER DEATH AT THE BEGINNING OF
THE HISTORICAL PERIOD 83
1. The belief in immortality is said to have
appeared late — 11. The chief characteristics
of the primary belief at the beginning of the
historical period, in the countries bordering the
eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea.
IV THE ORIGIN OF THE MODERN CONCEP-
TION OF IMMORTALITY 101
I. Translation to a land of immortality —
II. The Messianic prophecies — III. The rec-
ognition of the insufficiency of national hopes,
the consequent establishment of individual re-
lations with the gods, and the dawn of the
modern belief in personal immortality — IV.
Greek sources of immortality. Ecstasy — V.
The absence of continuity between the primary
and the modern belief in immortality.
V THE DEDUCTIVE DEMONSTRATION OF
MODERN IMMORTALITY 129
I. The metaphysical arguments — Argu-
ments from the spiritual nature of all reality,
from the simplicity of the soul, from an intelli-
gent non-moral, and from an intelligent and
moral First Cause — II. The acknowledged
insufficiency of the deductive arguments and
the falling back upon direct " inner experi-
ence " of immortality.
VI THE DEMONSTRATION OF MODERN IM-
MORTALITY BY DIRECT SENSORY EVI-
DENCE AND SCIENTIFIC INDUCTION . 156
I. Physical manifestations — II. Psychical
manifestations — III. The resurrection of
Christ.
xxvi
CONTENTS
PART II
STATISTICAL STUDY OF THE BELIEF IN A
PERSONAL GOD AND IN PERSONAL IM-
MORTALITY IN THE UNITED STATES
INTRODUCTION 172
CRITICAL REMARKS UPON RECENT
SYMPOSIA AND STATISTICAL INVESTI-
GATIONS 177
VII INVESTIGATION A: THE BELIEF IN GOD
AMONG AMERICAL COLLEGE STUDENTS 184
I. Typical answers, in extenso — 11. The
personal or impersonal nature of God — III.
The form, or image, or symbol under which
God is conceived — IV. God's relation to man.
VIII INVESTIGATION B: THE BELIEF IN IM-
MORTALITY IN AN AMERICAN COLLEGE 213
A statistical inquiry, including a compari-
son of the changes in belief taking place dur-
ing college years.
IX INVESTIGATION C: THE BELIEF IN GOD
AND IN IMMORTALITY AMONG AMERI-
CAN SCIENTISTS, SOCIOLOGISTS, HIS-
TORIANS, AND PSYCHOLOGISTS ... 219
A statistical inquiry, including in each group
a comparison of the less with the more emi-
nent men — I. The causes of the failure to
answer and the interpretation of the ques-
tionnaire — II. The scientists — III. The his-
torians — IV. The sociologists — V. The psy-
chologists — VI. The philosophers — VII. Com-
parison of the signed with the unsigned an-
swers, and of the answers to the first with the
answers to the second requests — VIII. Sum-
mary and conclusions from the statistics.
xxvii
CONTENTS
INDIVIDUALISM AS A CAUSE OF THE RE-
JECTION OF TRADITIONAL BELIEFS . 281
PART III
OF THE PRESENT UTILITY OF THE BELIEFS
IN PERSONAL IMMORTALITY AND IN A
PERSONAL GOD
INTRODUCTORY 290
XI THE DESIRE FOR IMMORTALITY AND THE
USEFULNESS OF THE BELIEF ... 294
The dislike for immortality — Indifference to
immortality — Immortality as a morally in-
ferior belief — Present causes of the desire for
immortality.
XII THE SOCIAL ORIGIN OF MORAL IDEAS
AND INSPIRATION AND THE UTILITY
OF TRANSCENDENTAL BELIEFS ... 319
INDEX OF NAMES 33J
XXVlll
PART I
THE TWO CONCEPTIONS OF IMMORTALITY
THEIR ORIGINS, THEIR DIFFERENT
CHARACTERISTICS AND THE AT-
TEMPTED DEMONSTRATION OF
THE TRUTH OF THE MOD-
ERN CONCEPTION.
CHAPTER I
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PRIMARY
BELIEF IN CONTINUATION
AFTER DEATH^
" It might be hard to point to a single tribe of
men, however savage, of whom one could say with
certainty that the faith is totally wanting among
them " : thus writes Frazer' of the belief in survival
after death; and most other competent anthropolo-
gists affirm with less caution the presence of that
belief in every tribe, however primitive.'
This universal belief of the non-civilized in con-
tinuation after death is commonly regarded as es-
sentially similar to the modern belief in immortality ;
yet we shall find it to be so different from the
former, that it would be nearer the truth to
maintain that, save for the idea of continuation, the
two beliefs have little in common. We shall see,
further, that the savage is convinced of immortality
by facts rejected in toto by the civilized Christian,
and that the latter desires immortality for reasons
^ In this chapter I shall use " continuation " and " survi-
val " interchangeably with " immortality." When one deals
with the beliefs of the savage and of the average civilized
man, immortality is the less exact of these terms.
'J. G. Frazer: The Belief in Immortality: London; Mac-
millan; 1913. Pages 25, 33. This volume is a valuable com-
pilation of beliefs concerning immortality among the abo-
rigines of Australia, the Torres Straits Islands, New Guinea,
and Melanesia.
■ Following the present custom, I shall use the term
" primitive " to designate, as the case may be, the lowest
populations now extant or the hypothetical original man.
2 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
unknown to the savage. The history of the idea of
continuation after death falls, therefore, into two
great historical periods between which there is little
if any continuity of a vital character. The first
we shall call the period of the primary, or ghost
belief.
WHEN DID THE BELIEF IN PRIMARY
CONTINUATION APPEAR?
The demonstration of the existence in every living
tribe of the primary belief would not, however, be
equivalent to a proof of its coexistence with human
life. Was there not a social stage earlier than the
one represented by the present " primative " man,
in which the idea of the surviving soul had not yet
appeared? One might argue with great plausibility
that the grim fact of death must have been, at first,
conclusive of the finality of earthly existence. Men,
animals, and plants drop and decay ; the human body
not only becomes inert but falls to pieces and dis-
solves. That ever recurring direct, sensory demon-
stration of finality must, it seems, have overcome
any adverse promptings coming from the instinct of
self-preservation and from any existing sense of per-
manency.
One might turn to archeology for a solution of
this problem. From that science, if from any, must
come the knowledge we seek. I need hardly say that,
for the present, archeology is far from having fully
discovered the material conditions of life and still
less the social customs and beliefs of the early popu-
lations, the existence of which it has revealed.
Not a trace of reliable information has been
found as to the existence of man during the Tertiary
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 3
age. The skeletal remains (pithecanthropus erec-
tus) discovered by Dr. Dubois at Trinil, on the
island of Java in a pliocene formation, are not suffi-
cient to permit an assured classification. They may
be part of a man, or of an anthropoid ape now ex-
tinct. Of the presence of man during the earlier
Quarternary age, v^e possess indications quite in-
sufficient to permit conclusions concerning the
meaning of certain burial customs.
The middle and later Quaternary (this includes
the '' reindeer period ") are the earliest periods
about which archeology has provided reliable infor-
mation. Three prehistoric races (the race of Nean-
derthal or of Spy, that of Cro-Magnon or of Lang-
erie, and the Negroid race) and some of their funer-
ary customs have been discovered. A large part of
this information comes from the caves of Grimaldi,'
situated near the Principality of Monaco. A few
words concerning the finds made in one of these
caves, the Grotte des Enfants, will serve our pur-
pose. In this cave stood ten meters of deposit ar-
ranged in nine superposed dwelling levels. The
inferior layers contained remains of reindeer. The
deposits extended, therefore, throughout the second
half of the Quaternary age. Several skeletons
were found at different levels. One of the sepul-
tures, at a depth of 7m. 50, known as sepulture num-
ber four, contained skeletons of an old woman and
of an adolescent. The young man carried on the
* See Tome I, pages 289-299, of J. Dechelette's Manuel
d'Archeologie Prehistorique Celtique et Gallo-Roviatne :
Paris; Picard et Fils; 1908-1914. The two tomes are pub-
lished in four volumes and two appendices.
4 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
forehead a wreath of four rows of perforated shells.
The left arm of the woman was decorated with two
bracelets made of the same shells. A few flint
blades seemed to have been placed on the bodies
or by their sides at the time of burial.'
In another Grimaldi cave was found the famous
Homme cle Menton. About the skull were more
than 2000 perforated shells, which probably formed
a head decoration, and twenty-two canines of deer,
also perforated. These objects and certain bones of
the skeleton were colored.
The age of these Quaternary races is immaterial
to us; v/hat we wish to know^ is the degree of de-
velopment attained by them, how far removed they
were from what may be considered the really primi-
tive man. The only answer we can make to that
question is that they belong to the *' rough stone ''
age; that is, to a time when metals and pottery"
were unknown. The only implements used were of
stone, chiefly flint; of bones; and of wood. These
populations were, therefore, presumably at a stage
of culture somewhat inferior to that of the most
primitive contemporary savages.
We may thus take it for established that the tribes
of the stone age buried their dead, or some of them,
in protected places ; and that together with the body
they interred ornaments and a few useful imple-
ments, chiefly flint blades. The skull and bones of
the face were often colored with ocres. Stones were
' Dechelette, Loc. cit. Vol. I, page 294.
" Some very simple pieces of pottery, apparently belonging
to the Quaternary age, have been found in Belgium.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 5
sometimes placed under the head and about the body,
as for protection.
Must these funerary customs be taken to imply
a belief in survival after death? No, not neces-
sarily. It is conceivable that even in the absence
of a belief in an after-life, bodies should have been
buried in this fashion. There are feelings, natural
even to the savage, which might have led to these
practices. The appreciation of faithfulness, dig-
nity, and power are surely traits belonging in some
measure to men of the lowest societies known to us.
Who would deny to any being, really belonging to
the human species, an aversion for casting to the
dogs the body of a person liked and respected? A
propensity, quite independent of a belief in souls, to
take some care of at least some corpses, at some time
or other, must, it seems, be conceded. And, how
better can respect and affection be shown than by
burying the person with the things which in this life
he needed most and valued above all others, the
things which he had used and worn and which had
become, in a sense, a part of his personality?
No more can the presence of certain pictures on
the walls of Quaternary caves, and a curious custom
which I shall describe presently, be regarded as dem-
onstrating the existence of the survival-idea among
these Troglodytes. From the position of these pic-
tures in high places and in dark recesses, as well as
for other reasons, Salomon Reinach concluded that
they were not intended as decorations. He assimi-
lated them to the pictures of present day savages by
which they magically insure the multiplication or
6 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
the capture of the animals pictured. The principle
tacitly recognized in this widely distributed kind of
magic is that the picture or, in other instances, the
name or the gesture-imitation of a thing gives con-
trol over that thing. The magical function of these
wall pictures is rendered the more probable by the
fact that they include only desirable animals; no
carnivora are found among them.'
The curious practice to which I have referred con-
sisted in cutting out of the skull of living or of dead
persons pieces to be worn in the manner of amulets
or other magical objects. A single explorer, Pru-
niere, has gathered in Lozere no less than one hun-
dred and twenty-six perforated skulls and forty-one
pieces taken from them. It seems that trepanation
on the dead was performed in preference upon skulls
that had already been trepanned in life, perhaps, as
Broca suggested, because these persons were invested
with a holy character. These pieces of bone, perfo-
rated at each end, were no doubt sacred objects, con-
ferring upon the wearer powers and immunities.'
Some authorities hold that the operation was per-
formed in order to let out a spirit who caused the
death. The modern Kabyles have been known to
perform trepanning for exorcising purposes.
Both this custom and the animal paintings are
consistent with the absence of the idea of survival.
^ UAnthropologie; 1903; pages 257-266; and more fully in
Cultes, Mythes et Religions: Leroux; Paris; 1905-1906; Vol.
I, pages 125-136.
See in my book, A Psychological Study of Religion, the dis-
cussion of magic and religion.
' Dechelette, Loc cit., pages 474-482.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 7
They may be explained as an expression of belief in
the existence of an impersonal force, a mana, resid-
ing in the person or animal, a part of which is
supposed to be secured or controlled by the posses-
sion of a bit of the skull of the deceased, or by a rep-
resentation of the animal.
But if the presence of burial is not necessarily a
proof of the presence of the continuation-idea, no
more is the absence of burial a proof of the absence
of that conception. We know, as a matter of fact,
of savages who merely throw their dead into the
brush, and who, nevertheless, believe in survival
after death.
THE SAVAGE'S IDEA OF SOUL AND GHOST
The words '' soul " and '' ghost " are used synony-
mously in anthropological literature, as if they rep-
resented one and the same conception. We shall in
the rest of this chapter conform to this usage, al-
though, in the next, we shall be led to ascribe a dif-
ferent meaning to these words.
Most, perhaps all, savages believe in a plurality
of souls. Each man may possess two or even a
much higher number of souls. This belief is found
among populations as primitive as those of Aus-
tralia. Ross reports that among the tribes of the
Pennefather river it is believed that each man has
two souls; one called ngoi, resides in the heart; the
other, choi, dwells in the placenta.' On the western
coast of Africa, there is a belief in the ki^a which
* E. Durkheim: Les Formes Elementaires de la Vie Re-
ligieuse; Paris; Alcan; 1912. Pages 368, 369.
8 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
exists before the birth of the man to whom it belongs,
and will continue after his death. The kra can ab-
sent itself from the living body and return to it at
will. This happens usually in sleep, but it may also
occur during waking, in which case the departure of
the kra is indicated merely by a yawn. These same
people believe also in the srahman, a soul that begins
its career only at death of its possessor.
Remarkable exceptions to the ascription of a soul
or souls, to every individual are recorded : among the
Gnanji, for instance, the women are thought to have
no soul." This is probably a belief of late origin,
expressive of contempt for that sex.
The word '* soul " assumes among savages a sur-
prising variety of meanings, none of which is exactly
that of the educated Christian. Even in primitive
Australia, the conception of the soul is far from
simple. The descriptions given of it by the aborigi-
nes seems in many respects amazingly contradictory.
It is, of course, a material substance ; for the savage
does not know of spirit-existence independently of
material bodies. Ghosts are usually invisible; only
certain persons, for instance, old men or members
of a superior race, can see them. Africans have
been known to ask a white traveler to catch a
troublesome ghost for them.
The soul is variously described as small, like a
grain of sand, or of any size up to that of a giant.
Its shape is said to be round, featureless, or quite
similar to that of the living person to whom it be-
^^ Spencer and Gillen: Northern Tribes of Central Aus-
tralia; pages 179, 546.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 9
longed, or of any other conceivable appearance. It
can pass through the smallest hole and crack, either
because it partakes of the nature of the wind, or be-
cause of its smallness. It is, nevertheless, commonly
represented also as eating, sleeping, and performing
most, or all, of the functions characteristic of this
life.
The relation of the soul to the body also evinces
great varieties. During the life of the body, the
soul is variously thought to be diffused throughout
the body, or to be especially connected with the
blood, or the breath, the heart, the liver, or some
other organ. Its connection with the body involves
growth and decay ; on leaving the body, the souls of
the young and vigorous are also young and vigor-
ous, and the souls of the aged and infirm also old and
infirm. We shall see that this belief, when it is con-
sistently held, leads to curious and cruel customs.
For some, the bodily shadow is the soul ; for others,
the reflection of oneself seen in water, or elsewhere,
is the soul. It may be supposed that some regard
both shadow and reflection as the soul. Not infre-
quently the breath is said to be the soul.
The soul can temporarily leave the living body.
This happens particularly during sleep and other
temporary loses of consciousness, such as swoons.
According to many tribes, the soul remains con-
nected with the corpse until complete decomposition
has taken place. When the bones have become
clean, the soul is held to have become completely
free. Until then it had remained at or near the
place of burial, now it can move to the land of
10 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
spirits. It may, however, return to the living when-
ever it pleases or only on special occasions. This
liberation of the soul from the dead body is such
an important event in the history of the soul that
henceforth it bears a new name: it has become a
spirit.
It would be unreasonable to expect the savage to
entertain only those ideas of the soul which are en-
tirely consistent with each other. Primitive minds do
not perceive contradictions obvious to a modern,
trained mind. The savage frequently uses as a
means of gratifying his desires, unembarrassed by
logical requirements, his ill-determined notion of a
som.ething vitalizing the body and of a some-
thing continuing to live after its death. In or-
der that the soul may escape, the Hottentots and
other populations, for instance, make a hole in the
wall of the hut in which a person has just died.
They then plug that hole and imagine that they have
protected themselves against the return of the soul
within the hut ; for, they say, the ghost will not look
for or not be able to find the other openings. In
other circumstances, however, the same tribe as-
cribes to ghosts capacities which should, it seems,
make the procedure just described ridiculous to the
savage himself. We are here in the presence of a
sort of unconscious deception practiced upon him-
self by the Hottentot in order to allay his fear of
ghosts.''
'' The mental trick illustrated above is not peculiar to the
savage; it is, on the contrary, extremely common and pre-
cious to the civilized. One needs only listen for a while to a
discussion, especially when it takes place between persons of
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 11
But these contradictions are not all real. Some
of them are the result of our failure to recognize
that the savage has in mind at times the seed of life
that enters the woman and produces a child ; and, at
other times, the ghost that continues after the death
of the body. In the next chapter we give reasons for
holding that the savage makes that distinction and
thus is, in many cases, not open to the accusation of
contradiction and inconsistency of which he seems
guilty when that distinction is ignored.
THE SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH AND IMMORTALITY
Survival after death is not equivalent to im-
mortality. Everywhere, even among the Austral-
ians, there are tribes which admit the final annihila-
tion of some souls or classes of souls. At the same
time they set no limit to the continuation of other
souls. Among some tribes, the souls of the departed
after having returned several times from the island
of the dead to live in their former families in order
to perform various kindly functions, are finally de-
stroyed by a thunderbolt. The Tougans think that
only the souls of noblemen are saved, that the others
little culture, to become aware of the presence of bare-faced
subterfuges and of obviously illogical arguments by which
each speaker seeks to protect his interests, or his pride. It is
chiefly by this method that men, whatever the level of cul-
ture to which they belong, succeed in preserving a flattering
opinion of themselves. To say that the contestants are
altogether aware of the defect of their arguments, would not
always represent correctly their state of consciousness. But
the vague sense of unrightness of which they may be cogni-
zant is impotent before the will to self-assertion, which is the
dominant factor in most discussion. This class of mental
processes cannot be adequately understood without reference
to the psychology of the so-called subconscious mental ac-
tivity.
12 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
perish with their bodies. In one of the Solomon
Islands, the ghosts of no account survive death only
for a time. " All ghosts upon leaving the body-
swim ... to two islands lying off Marau in Gua-
dalcanar. The children chatter and annoy the elder
ghosts, so they are placed apart upon the second
island; men and women ghosts are together, they
have houses, gardens, and canoes, yet all is unsub-
stantial. Living men cross to Marapa and see noth-
ing; but there is water there in which laughter and
cries are heard ; there are places where water is seen
to have been disturbed, and the banks are wet as if
bathers had been there. . . . This ghostly life is not
eternal. The mere akalo (the ghosts of ordinary
people) soon turn into white ants' nests, which be-
come the food of the still vigorous ghosts; hence a
living man says to his idle son, 'When I die, I shall
have ants' nests to eat, but then what will you
have?' " ''
Of the Fijian we read, " On the whole, when we
survey the many perils which beset the way to the
Fijian heaven, and the many risks which the souls of
the dead ran of dying the second death in the other
world or of being knocked on the head by the living
in this, we shall probably agree with the missionary
Mr. Williams in concluding that under the old Fijian
dispensation there were few indeed that were
saved."^'
'" R. H. Codrington; The Melanesians; Oxford; 1891. Page
260. Ghosts are sometimes cooked and eaten up by some
giant ghost.
"Frazer: Loc. cit., page 467.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 13
To be a chief or a shaman is in some tribes of
North America the condition of access to the other
world. In others, the old and the sick have little
chance of standing the hardships of the journey; in
still others, fire is thought to be fatal to souls.
If, as I have already reported, souls age with the
body, the process of aging should go on in the other
world and end with the death of the soul. Never-
theless, most savages seem to assume that souls do
not age when once detached from the body. It
would be, I surmise, more exact to say that usually
they neither affirm nor deny the soul's independence
of the effect of time ; they simply do not think of the
question. '*
The belief that in this life souls share the for-
tunes of the body, leads to practices most revolting
to us. Some Australians, for instance, put their
relatives to death before they are old in order that
they may not be too feeble to care for themselves
in the other world. I find in Frazer the following
'* This failure of the savage to take into consideration the
effect of time upon persons who are supposed to be in most
respects like himself is not surprising when we recall our
own imagery of those from whom we have been long sepa-
rated. They continue present to our memory with the phys-
ical appearance that was familiar to us. It is only when we
expect a person to return to us that we may make an effort
to picture him under the changed appearance which years
have probably worked.
For the rest, the savage might perfectly well think that
men do not age in the other world and yet place no limit to
the process. The fact that even death by old age is often
looked upon as maleficent sorcery shows how far removed
these men are from connecting signs of age v/ith the neces-
sity of death. Among the Monumbo of German New Guinea,
souls grow old and die, but they are not annihilated, for they
are changed into animals and plants. Frazer: Loc. cit.;
page 229.
14 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
account of how a son lovingly strangled his aged
mother. Strangling was considered '* a more deli-
cate and affectionate way " of dispatching relatives
than to knock them on the head with a club.
On one occasion, the missionary, Mr. Hunt, " was
called upon by a young man, who desired that he
would pray to his spirit for his mother, who was
dead. Mr. Hunt was at first in hopes that this
would afford him an opportunity of forwarding their
great cause. On inquiry, the young man told him
that his brothers and himself were just going to
bury her. Mr. Hunt accompanied the young man,
telling him he would follow in the procession, and
do as he desired him, supposing of course, the corpse
would be brought along; but he now met the proces-
sion, when the young man said that this was the
funeral, and pointed out his mother, who was walk-
ing along with them, as gay and lively as any of
those present, and apparently as much pleased. Mr.
Hunt expressed his surprise to the young man, and
asked him how he could deceive him so much by say-
ing his mother was dead, when she was alive and
well. He said, in reply, that they had made her
death-feast, and were now going to bury her; that
she was old; that his brother and himself had
thought she had lived long enough, and it was time
to bury her, to which she had willingly assented, and
they were about it now. He had come to Mr. Hunt
to ask his prayers, as they did those of the priest.
He added, that it was from love for his mother that
he had done so; that, in consequence of the same
love, they were now going to bury her, and that none
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 15
but themselves could or ought to do so sacred^ an
office ! Mr. Hunt did all in his power to prevent so
diabolical an act ; but the only reply he received v^as,
that she was their mother, and they were her chil-
drn, and they ought to put her to death. On reach-
ing the grave, the mother sat down, when they all,
including children, grandchildren, relations and
friends, took an affectionate leave of her; a rope,
made of twisted tapa (bark-cloth) was then passed
twice around her neck by her sons, who took hold of
it and strangled her; after which she was put into
her grave with the usual ceremonies. They returned
to feast and mourn, after which she was entirely for-
gotten as though she had not existed." '"
These remarks and quotations will suffice to make
it clear that survival is not equivalent to immortal-
ity: some souls may continue endlessly; it is in the
nature of others to come to a '' natural " end after
a certain lapse of time ; these may, moreover, be de-
stroyed accidentally. In this, as in other important
respects, the primary continuation belief is not to be
assimilated with the modern immortality of the soul.
THE LIFE OF GHOSTS AND THEIR RELATION WITH
THE LIVING; THE PRIMARY PARADISE
The more deeply one inquires into the customs
and beliefs of the savage, the more one is amazed at
their almost endless variety. It is evident that
under the incentive of certain needs and desires,
imagination had for a long time been elaborating in
every thinkable shape a few fundamental notions.
With regard to the nature and the fate of the soul,
Frazer: Loc. cit.; pages 423, 424.
16 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
th^ more important conceptions of the savage pro-
ceed essentially from a desire to explain certain
events and to define his relation to the ghosts. A
knowledge of these relations is of paramount im-
portance to the savage. His many other ideas con-
cerning the dead have no deep roots ; they are to be
regarded as chiefly a play of the fancy, so that they
belong to myth rather than to religion.
The separation which death makes between the
living and the departed is much less radical than is
commonly imagined. The dead, it is true, usually
live in another country, but their world differs but
little from that of the living, and they continue mem-
bers of the social group to which they belonged when
in the body. As the individual was in this life, so
is he usually in the other: either strong or weak,
courageous or cowardly, clever or stupid, rich or
poor, young or old, healthy or sickly, happy or un-
happy. The kings remain kings, and the slaves,
slaves. Ghosts and spirits can be spoken to, heard,
seen. Miss Kingsley relates how she heard a negro
speaking aloud to his dead mother, just as if she
were beside him. Death makes a difference not much
greater than results from initiation when a child
becomes a full member of the social group. "'
It is essential to an understanding of the relation
of the living with their dead that the two periods
frequently recognized in the fortunes of the soul
should be born in mind. The souls do not go to the
' ' Levy-Briihl : Les Fonctions Mentales dans les Societes
Inferieures: Paris,; Mean; 2d ed.; 1912. Chap. VIII, espe-
cially 1 and 4.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 17
land of the dead immediately after death. They are
supposed to tarry near the grave and about their
former dwellings until the end of the period of
mourning, which appears to coincide roughly with
the complete decomposition of the body. Then, they
move to ghost-land, when their relation with their
tribes' people becomes more distant. Certain tribes
speak, in addition, of vagrant souls which, unable to
get to the land of spirits, haunt this earth for a
time or permanently.
The world of the dead is more or less vaguely and
variously located, somewhere to the east or to the
west, under the earth, in or above the sky, on the
other side of a mountain or of a river, on an island,
in a cave, in or under the earth, etc. The souls may
also remain in the immediate neighborhood of the
tribe and lodge themselves in trees, plants, stones
or in any object whatsoever, and there wait for a
chance to be re-born from a woman of the tribe to
which they belong. The Central Australians, for
instance, " imagine that the spirits of the dead con-
tinue to haunt their native land and especially cer-
tain striking natural features of the landscape. It
may be a pool of water in a deep gorge of the iDarren
hills, or a solitary tree in the sun-baked plains, or a
great rock that affords a welcome shade in the sultry
noon. Such spots are thought to be tenanted by
the souls of the departed waiting to be born again,
There they lurk, constantly on the lookout for pass-
ing women into whom they may enter, and from
whom in due time they may be born as infants. It
matters not whether the woman be married or un-
18 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
married, a matron or a maid, a blooming girl or a
withered hag; any woman may conceive directly by
the entrance into her of one of these disembodied
spirits ; but the natives have shrewdly observed that
the spirits show a decided preference for plump
young women. Hence when such a damsel is pass-
ing near a plot of haunted ground, if she does not
wish to become a mother, she will disguise herself
as an aged crone and hobble past, saying in a thin,
cracked voice, 'Don't come to me. I am an old
woman.' Such spots are often stones, which the
natives call child-stones because the souls* of the
dead are there lying in wait for women in order to
be born as children. One such stone, for example,
may be seen in the land of the Arunta tribe near
Alice Springs. It projects to a height of three feet
from the ground among the mulga scrub, and there
is a round hole in it through which the souls of dead
plum-tree people are constantly peeping, ready to
pounce out on a likely damsel. Again, in the terri-
tory of the Warramunga tribe the ghosts of black-
snake people are supposed to gather in the rocks
round certain pools or in the gum-trees which border
the generally dry bed of a water-course. No War-
ramunga woman would dare to strike one of these
trees with an axe, because she is firmly convinced
that in doing so she would set free one of the lurk-
ing black-snake spirits, who would immediately dart
into her body. They think that the spirits are no
larger than grains of sand and that they make their
way into women through the navel. Nor is it merely
by direct contact with one of these repositories of
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 19
souls, nor yet by pasing near it, that women may
be gotten with child against their wish. The Arunta
believe that any malicious man may by magic cause
a woman or even a child to become a mother : he has
only to go to one of the child-stones and rub it with
his hands, muttering the words, * Plenty of young
women. You look and go quickly.' " ''
Long before ethical considerations have begun to
influence the conception of the future life, the realm
of the dead is made up of several places or divisions.
Warriors, priests, women and children may each
have a place of their own; there may be special
abodes for the people who have been shot, for those
who have been clubbed to death, for those who have
been done to death by magic, etc. Among the
Muriks, a tribe of Sarawak in Borneo, all except
women who have died in child-birth and men who
have died in warfare, go to Long Kendi. As the
warriors come along the road leading to it, a guard-
ian spirit turns them '' down a rocky path, which
leads to the country of Pohun Nang where there is
always war and famine, so that these restless spirits
can indulge themselves to their heart's content. "
The women who have died in child-birth have their
own dwelling place. To the gods of these Muriks is
assigned still another abode.'' According to one
account, the Fijians imagine that every man has two
souls, a dark and a light one. " The dark soul de-
''I take this from Frazer: Loc. cit.; pages 93, 94, who
summarizes here information found on many pages of Spen-
cer and Gillen's two volumes on the Australian tribes.
'• The Sarawak Museum Journal; 1911; Vol. 8; page 146.
20 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
parts at death to Hades, while the light soul stays
near the place where he died or was killed." '* I
have already quoted a passage in which the ghosts
are represented as swimming to two little islands.
The ghosts of children live on one, and the ghosts
of grown up people on the other.
The colors with which ghost-land is painted vary
somewhat from tribe to tribe; these differences re-
flect no doubt social conditions and dominant tem-
peramental characteristics. The world of the dead
is usually neither better nor worse than that of
the living. Among many tribes, however, a para-
disiacal element appears : the land of the dead is de-
scribed as a fortunate country abounding in food
and of a pleasant climate, where work is unneces-
sary. These ideas are found in widely distant coun-
tries and among the more, as well as among the less
primitive savages.
The tribes of central Australia, 'for instance,
place ghost-land below the earth, in a well watered
land, enjoying a perpetual sunshine.'" A similar
belief exists among the Australians of New South
Wales and of Victoria." In German New Guinea,
the Monumbo who, we are told, *' are acquainted
with no Supreme Being, no moral good or evil, no
rewards, no place of punishment or joy after death,
no permanent immortality," believe, nevertheless,
that in the land of spirits the souls dwell without
working or suffering. *' Bethel-chewing, smoking,
" Frazer: Loc. cit.; page 411.
'" Spencer and Gillen: The Native Tribes of Central Aus-
tralia. Pages 513, 524.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 21
dancing, sleeping, all the occupations that they
loved on earth are continued without interruption
in the other world. They converse with men in
dreams, but play them many a shabby trick, take
possession of them and even, it may be, kill them.
Yet they also help men in all manner of ways in war
and the chase. Men invoke them, pray to them,
make statues in their memory, which are called dva
(plural dvaka) y and bring them offerings of food,
in order to obtain their assistance. But if the
spirits of the dead do not help, they are rated in the
plainest language." '' It is worthy of note that
these Monumbo are of an optimistic disposition.
They are described as ** cheerful and contented,
proud of themselves and their country; they think
they are the cleverest and most fortunate people on
earth, and look down with pity and contempt on
Europeans." '' We have seen that the Fijians also
seem to think of the other life as on the whole desir-
able. But if they frequently murdered in cold blood
the invalid and the aged, on the ground that they
would be happier in the other life, one should not for-
get another motive, probably not less influential for
being unavowed, namely, the wish of those who exe-
cuted the deed to be rid of an encumbrance. In
the establishment of this practice, economic motives
(insufficient food for instance), played probably the
essential role. The dwelling place of the dead, when
*' Matthews, " Ethnol. Notes on the Aboriginal Tribes of
New South Wales and Victoria." Jr, and Proc. of the Royal
"Frazer: Loo, cit.; pages 228, 229.
*'Frazer: Loc. cit.; page 228.
22 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
there is only one, is generally pictured by the North
American Indians as a Happy Hunting Ground, in
which the chief wishes of man are gratified without
painful effort.'*
To one acquainted with the universal fear of
ghosts shown by the savage, and with the belief in
the utterly wretched condition of all souls, enter-
tained at the dawn of the historical period in the
nations from which Europe derived its civilization,
the belief of many primitive peoples in a para-
dise may come as a surprise. The presence of that
belief does not prevent the ghosts from being regard-
ed by all savages as mischief makers, as causes of
sickness, death, and poverty. One of the chief con-
cerns of the savage is to make it impossible for the
recently liberated ghost to return to those he leaves
behind. The majority of the ceremonies connected
with death and burial aim at preventing them from
returning to the living, or at warding off their nefar-
ious activities. Curious methods are in use to throw
off the track the ghost who might try to return to
the body or the hut just vacated. Among the Tuski of
Alaska " those who die a natural death are carried
out through a hole cut in the back of the hut. This
is immediately closed up that the spirit of the dead
man may not find his way back."" Elsewhere
for the same reason, the corpse is let out of the
house through the floor or is carried two or three
"* E. L. Moon Conard: Les Idees des Indiens Algonquins
relatives a la vie d* Outre Tomhe; Chap. III. Reprinted from
Rev. de VHistoire des Religions; 1900; Tome XLII.
"" W. H. Dall: Alaska and Its Resources: Boston; Lee and
Shepard; 180. Page 382.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 23
times around the house at top speed so as to be-
wilder him.
Even when unmistakable sorrow is felt at the
death of a friend, his ghost is dreaded and every pre-
caution may be taken to prevent his return. In
speaking of the Algonquins, Mrs. Conard expresses
the conviction that the relatives of the dead are us-
ually affected by the loss of the deceased. She tells
of an old Ojibway chief who would go alone to the
tomb of his son and lament his departure, '' Why
have you gone so soon to the country of the dead? "
" The frequent visits to the tomb of the deceased
and the lamentations constitute the best proof of the
affectionate feelings of the survivors, especially when
these visits are not made at stated times." " Never-
theless, these Indians perform certain rites in order
to drive these same souls away from their houses.
Levy-Briihl notes instances in which the desire of
the removal of the ghost from the proximity of his
loving friends is naively expressed. ''When a man
is dying, his friends bring him food and say : * Be
good; if you leave us, leave us for good.' Among
the Igorotes of the Philippines, during the first days
following death, the old women and then the old
men sing several times the following chant : ' Now
you are dead. . . . We have given you everything
that was necessary and made fitting preparations
for burial. Do not come back to fetch any of your
relatives or friends.' Similarly in Western Africa,
the Reverend Nassau explains that the feelings of
survivors toward a dead man are very much mixed.
" See Moon Conard: Loc. cit.; pages 58, 59.
24 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
When they beg of him to come back to life, they
are certainly sincere, they desire his return; but al-
most at the same time, appears the fear that the
dead may come back not in his usual and sociable
form but in the condition of a disincarnated spirit,
invisible and perhaps hostile." "
It should not be inferred from the universal fear
of ghosts that they are all entirely malevolent. On
the contrary, in all primitive populations there are
ghosts who perform kindly offices. In Australia,
they are " generally looked upon rather as benef-
icent, especially for the members of their families;
. . . the soul of the father returns to help the
growth of his children or grandchildren." "
EXPLANATION OF THE FEAR OF GHOSTS AND THE
EVIL CHARACTER USUALLY ASCRIBED
TO THEM
When attempting to account for the unpleasant
character of the relations maintained by the living
with the dead, we must ask ourselves what facts
known to the savage are likely to affect the charac-
ter he ascribes to ghosts and his attitude towards
them. There are at least four of these : the liking
for life, the aversion to death itself, the fate of the
earthly body, and the mystery surrounding the ex-
istence of the invisible ghosts. Let us consider these
facts in the reverse order.
(a) Man's instinctive response to the presence of
things not clearly seen or understood, is the recoil
of fear and the attraction of curiosity. Ghosts are
Levy-Briihl: hoc. cit.; pages 367-370, 398-403.
Durkheim: Loc. cit., page 392.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 25
commonly supposed to approach the living during
sleep, but no one can tell where they hide or what
they will do. The passage quoted from Durkheim
in which is affirmed the benevolence of certain
ghosts, is immediately followed by these lines, " But
it may happen that the [same] ghost behaves with
real cruelty ; everything depends on his mood and the
way in which he is treated by the living." The lack
of definite knowledge of the mode of existence of
ghosts, of their desires, and of their intentions,
awakens an uneasy alertness to possible dangers
which readily turns into fear. Fear breeds antip-
athy; for, one cannot like that which keeps one
continually in a state of fearful suspense. Under
these circumstances, it unavoidably comes to pass
that the commission of particular evil deeds is
ascribed to ghosts: a person we dislike, and with
whom we have to live, is soon blackened by number-
less sins of omission and of commission, however
blameless he may really be.
(b) The fate of the human and animal body, in
so far as it rots, stinks, and disappears, leaving
only bones, is perfectly well known to the savage. It
would seem natural that in some vague way he should
look upon the ghost as participating in the misery
of the putrefying body, and that the repulsion felt
for it should pass to the ghost connected with it.
It is a similar mental process that induces in many
a dislike of automobiles and even of their owners
because of the dust, the noise, and the danger they
occasion.
The corpse is not connected in the mind of the
26 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
savage with the ghost only, but usually also with
mysterious, impersonal, magical powers. At times
these seem to belong to the corpse, at times to the
ghost itself. The nature of both magical power and
ghost is determined in some respect by certain char-
acteristics of the corpse; and, in turn, the behavior
of the savage towards the corpse is in part the out-
come of these two conceptions.
The more dangerous period for the living is, ac-
cording to the savage, the one immediately following
death, it lasts until the final mourning ceremonies,
which mark the complete separation of the soul from
the decaying body and its entrance into spirit-land.
African natives explained to Miss Kingsley that the
souls who harm surviving members of their families
do not do so with evil intent ; they behave badly be-
cause, until they are settled in the society of spirits,
they are unhappy."
Numerous customs testify to the connection estab-
lished by the savage mind between the destitution of
the body in the grave and the ghost. The placing
of food and weapons in the graves, the keeping of
fires on or near them, the sending of the widow after
the ghost, and other widespread practices may indi-
cate that the living do not understand how, without
their help, the dead may have a tolerable time of it.
If we may see in these customs an expression of
benevolence, we may also regard them as an effort
to propitate: kindness and fear may have operated
together in the production of these practices.
" Levy-BriihhLoc. cit.; pages 365, 366.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 27
When the last mourning rite has been celebrated
— possibly several years after the death — the ghost
is no longer supposed to roam among the living, un-
happy and dangerous. He has definitely found his
place in the abode of the dead and his relation with
the living has become more distant. The customs of
the Tarahumares of Mexico mark well the successive
stages in the removal of the ghost from the prox-
imity of the living. Three festivals are celebrated.
"At the first, which takes place less than two weeks
after the death, all those who are in mourning speak
to the dead, the shaman first, begging him to let alone
the living. . . . The third festival is the final effort
to get rid of the dead. This ceremony comes to an
end with a race between two young men. ' They come
back rejoicing because at last the dead has finally
gone; . . . they show their contentment by throw-
ing up their blankets, their coats, their hats. . . .
The names given to these three ceremonies indicate
respectively, the intention of providing food for the
ghost, of renewing his provisions, of giving him to
drink.'
" But these same Tarahumares when once the final
ceremony has been celebrated know that they need
not fear any longer, and they act accordingly.
* They would see me without emotion,' says Mr.
Lumholtz, 'remove the corpses of their dead, pro-
vided they had been buried a few years and the nec-
essary ceremonies aiming at separating them from
this world had been celebrated. ... A Tarahumare
sold me the skeleton of his mother-in-law for a dol-
28 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
lar.' " '" Relations between the dead and the liv-
ing are not usually altogether severed with the final
ceremony, but the ghost no longer demands assiduous
attention, and it has ceased to be a constant source
of anxiety.
(c) The death crisis itself is also a repulsive fact.
It is ordinarily objected to with all the strength of
most powerful instinctive tendencies. Here again
it seems unavoidable that the dread of death should
tend to pass upon the existence to which death leads.
The belief that most or all deaths are due to
malevolent spirits could only increase the repulsion
that may have been felt for the other life and its
denizens.
(d) A liking for this life is, independently of
the instinctive recoil from death, a cause of dislike
for the other. A place to which we are compelled to
go when we w^ould rather remain where we are, can
hardly be regarded with favor.
We may affirm, therefore, that the love of life and
these three impressive facts, death, bodily decom-
position, and the mystery surrounding the existence
of ghosts, are not of a nature to make the savage
think of the ghost, during the initial period of his
existence, as a benevolent and satisfied being ; on the
contrary, they conspire to make of him an object
of anxiety and dread. The calamities of human
existence provide, moreover, what seems abundant
proof of the evil propensity of ghosts.
Durkheim has offered another more ingenious
and less simple explanation of the evil character
Loc. cit.; pages 375, 376.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 29
ascribed to the ghost. According to him, this results
from an effort on the part of the savage to account
for the painfulness of his mourning customs. Here
is the theory in the author's own words : —
" It is not only the relatives most directly affected
who bring to the mourning assembly their personal
grief, but society as a whole exercises upon its mem-
bers a moral pressure to adjust their feelings har-
moniously to the situation. If the social group were
to allow its members to be indifferent to the blow
received, and by which it has been diminished [the
death of one of them], this would be equivalent to
acknowledging that the group does not occupy in
their hearts a sufficiently important place. ... A
family that would permit one of its number to die
unmourned would thereby testify to a lack of moral
unity and cohesion. . . . The individual, on his side,
when firmly attached to his group, feels morally
bound to participate in its sorrows and joys ; to take
no part in them would be to break the bonds which
unite him to the collective life. ... If the Chris-
tians, during Passion Week ; if the Jews, on the anni-
versary of the fall of Jerusalem, fast and mortify
themselves, it is not in order to give vent to a spon-
taneous sadness. In circumstances like these the
emotion of the believer is not proportional to the un-
comfortable abstinences which he endures. If he is
sad, it is chiefly because he is compelling himself
to be so ; and he compels himself in order to affirm
his faith. The attitude of the Australians during
mourning is to be explained in the same manner.
If he weeps, if he groans, it is not simply in order
30 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
to express an individual sorrow; it is in order to
fulfill a duty, of the existence of which society would
not fail to remind him should occasion arise."
Of course, the savage himself does not know the
true cause of his practices. ** When he attempts to
interpret them, he is compelled to make up an alto-
gether different explanation. He knows only that
he feels bound to subject himself to painful treat-
ment. As a sense of obligation naturally aw^akens
the idea of a compelling will, he looks about him,
seeking from whom may come the constraint he
feels. Now, there is a power the reality of which
seems to him certain, and which appears to answer
the purpose; this is the soul liberated by death.
This soul, of course, must be keenly interested in
the consequences which its liberation may have up-
on the living, and the savage imagines, therefore,
that if the living inflict torments upon themselves, it
is in order to conform to the souFs claims. ... On the
other hand, since inhuman demands are ascribed
to the soul, one is compelled to suppose that in leav-
ing the body which it had so far animated, the soul
loses all humane feeling. . . . The dead are not
mourned because they are feared, but are feared be-
cause they are mourned." "
No one would contest that the greater number of
mourning ceremonies are not purely, not even chief-
ly, the expression of personal feeling for the dead.
Doubtless they manifest social coercion ; but this fact
does not necessarily imply the truth of Durkheim's
'^ E. Durkheim: Les Formes Elementaires de la Vie Re-
ligieuse: Paris; Alcan; 1912. Pages 571, 572, 573.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 31
deduction, namely that objectionable character of
the ghost is altogether and primarily a reflection of
the unpleasantness of mourning customs. I see very
well that the unpleasantness of these customs may
tend to blacken the character of the ghost, but I
cannot admit that because of this possible effect one
is to set aside the more direct explanation which I
have provided.
How shall we, in view of the facts I have recited,
account for the existence among numerous savage
tribes of a paradisiacal conception of the other life?
The existence of circumstances producing fear of
ghosts does not preclude that of factors of an op-
posite tendency. Given the belief in continuation
after death, one does not see why at some time or
other, and very early, human imagination prompted
by the desire for happiness should not have dreamt
of a delightful land abounding in all the things that
make this life pleasant. This propensity, to which
myths in various parts of the earth testify, and the
adverse facts I have mentioned, urged man in two
opposed directions; thus conflicting accounts of
ghost-life arose. In this conflict, the belief in a
happy future life seems to have suffered defeat, for
we shall see that the idea of a paradise no longer
existed at the dawn of the historical period among
the peoples living about the Eastern end of the Med-
iterranean sea.
But why did the idea of a happy land of the dead
go out of existence? I can only surmise in answer
to this query that the destruction at death of the
earthly body had gained such a decisive meaning,
32 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
and that the information about the other life gleaned
from apparitions of ghosts in diverse circumstances
was such as to make ineffective any impulse that
might have been present to conceive ghost life as a
happy one. Not until new and powerful motives
had made themselves felt, did it become possible for
man to transcend by faith the knowledge which had
come to be interpreted as meaning unavoidable and
final misery after death.
CONDITIONS OF ADMISSION TO THE OTHER WORLD
AND THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO
CONTINUATION AFTER DEATH
Usually the land of the dead is not reached with-
out overcoming some obstacles. There are dangers
to be avoided and ordeals to be successfully met be-
fore the ghost may be established in his new quar-
ters. Some of these are merely creations of fantasy
without moral significance: the savage has amused
himself by inventing dramatic or comic incidents.
Such is the case in the following story : —
The Fijians tell of a terrible giant armed with
a great axe, who lies in wait for the souls. This
giant makes no distinctions but strikes at all who
attempt to pass. Those whom he wounds, never
reach the happy country, but are doomed to roam
rugged mountains, disconsolate. Those who escape,
pass on till they come to one of the highest moun-
tains of the islands. Somewhere " the path ends
abruptly on the brink of a precipice, the foot of
which is washed by a deep lake. Over the edge of
the precipice projects a large steer-oar, and the
handle is held either by the great god Ndengei him-
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 33
self, or, according to the better opinion, by his
deputy. When a ghost comes up and peers rue-
fully over the precipice, the deputy accosts him.
* Under what circumstances,' he asks, ' do you come
to us? How did you conduct yourself in the other
world? * Should the ghost be a man of rank, he may
say, * I am a great chief. I live as a chief and my
conduct was that of a chief. I had great wealth,
many wives, and ruled over a powerful people. I
have destroyed many towns, and slain many in war.'
' Good, good,' says the deputy, ' just sit down on the
blade of that oar, and refresh yourself in the cool
breeze.' If the ghost is unwary enough to accept
the invitation, he has no sooner seated himself on
the blade of the oar with his legs dangling over the
abyss, than the deputy-deity tilts up the other end of
the oar and precipitates him into the deep water, far
far below. A loud smack is heard as the ghost col-
lides with the water, there is a splash, a gurgle, a
ripple, and all is over. The ghost has gone to his
account in Murimuria, a very second-rate sort of
heaven, if it is nothing worse. But a ghost who is in
favor with the great god Ndengei is warned by him
not to sit down on the blade of the oar but on the
handle. The ghost takes the hint and seats himself
firmly on the safe end of the oar; and when the
deputy-deity tries to heave it up, he cannot, for he
has no purchase. So the ghost remains master of
the situation, and after an interval for refreshment
is sent back to earth to be deified.'"
Accounts of similar ordeals are found in many
'^Frazer: Loc. cit.; pages 456, 4G6.
34 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
places. Tribes in German New Guinea believe that
a ladder is placed over a great water for the souls
to pass over on their way to the land of the dead.
A spirit who has the ladder in his keeping exacts
gifts of all who wish to go by. If any attempt is
made to sneak across without paying toll, the lad-
der is tipped up, the ghost falls and is drowned."
Side by side with these merely imaginative stories
of the dangers threatening the ghost on his journey,
one finds indications of the advantage to the ghost
of having possessed in his earthly life certain par-
ticular traits valuable to the tribe, or of having per-
formed faithfully certain tribal customs. Could it
have been otherwise? Could man have observed the
worth to his tribe, and therefore to himself, of cour-
age and loyalty, and not have conceived of a reward
in the other life for those who had conspicuously
possessed these virtues? As a matter of fact, one
finds that very early and in many tribes warriors
and chiefs are assigned to a special and a better
heaven than the rank and file, or that, in some other
way, the particularly important and useful individ-
uals are favored. The first step towards the sociali-
zation of the conditions of admittance to the other
world may perhaps be exemplified by the following
beliefs : —
In Florida (Melanesia) the dead are met by a
ghost who thrusts a rod into their noses to see
whether the cartilage is pierced according to the
customs of their tribe. Those whose noses are not
pierced have much difficulty in making their way to
" Frazer: Loc. cit.; page 224.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 35
the realm of the shades. In the Solomon Islands,
it is the hands that are examined to see whether the
ghosts bear the marks of the sacred Frigate Bird cut
on them. Those who do not are cast into a gulf and
perish. In Eastern Melanesia the ghosts must have
their ears bored, and men who were not tattooed
on earth are chased by female ghosts '' who scratch
and cut and tear them with sharp shells, giving them
no respite." If those who do not bear the marks
mentioned in these illustrations are not admitted to
ghost-land, it is because only those possessing them
are acknowledged in life as full members of the
tribe. In Samoa, for instance, as long as a young man
had not been tattooed, he could not think of mar-
riage, he was constantly an object of ridicule, he had
not the right to speak in the company of men.'' Any
adult lacking the tribal mark was an alien.
The following beliefs illustrate in a more signifi-
cant way the early use made — not with clear intent,
of course — of the after life as a sanction for socially
valuable conduct. In Northern Melanesia those
who have been niggardly on earth are punished on
their way to ghost-land. They hold that all
breaches of etiquette or of the ordinary customs of
the countn^ will certainly meet with appropriate
punishments in spirit-land.*' If among the Fijians
*' the lot of a married ghost whose wives have not
been murdered is hard, it is nevertheless felicity it-
self compared to the fate of bachelor ghosts. In the
first place, there is a terrible being, called The Great
"'Turner: Samoa. Page 88. Quoted by Levy-Briihl: Loc.
cit.; page 411.
''Frazer: Loc. cit.; pages 350, 446, 405.
86 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
Woman who lurks in a shady defile, ready to pounce
upon him; and if he escapes her clutches, it is only
to fall in with a much worse monster from whom
there is no escape. So vigilant and alert is he that
not a single unmarried Fijian ghost is known to
have ever reached the mansions of the blessed." "
The Black Feet Indians of Saskatchewan deny ad-
mission to the future life to those who have spilled
the blood of their tribes' people, and to women
guilty of infanticide."
When instead of punishing the ghost for the neg-
lect of one or two valuable customs, he is made to
stand a general examination into his conduct on
earth, such for instance as is described in the " Book
of the Dead," a great stride forward has been made ;
the ideas of social worth and of moral responsibility
have become more definite. This stage had been
reached in Egypt probably as early as the Middle
Kingdom. Before that time, although the Egyp-
tians had already attained a considerable civiliza-
tion, righteousness was not among the conditions of
entrance into the other world. We are told that
that which enabled the King to secure a place in
the land of the Sun, was his rank, his power, and his
" equipped mouth," i. e., his knowledge of the ritual,
religious and magical. King Pepi, for instance, be-
came a glorious one '' by reason of his equipped
mouth." He was, it is true, to undergo a purifica-
tion, but this might take place after his arrival in
■'" Frazer: Loc. cit.; page 464, abbreviated.
^" Moon conard: Loc. cit., page 87. Is the influence of
Christian missionaries to be recognized here?
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 37
the sky; and, whether after or before, the bathing
in the sacred lake was usually intended to produce
nothing more than a ceremonial purification.
The " Book of the Dead '' shows Osiris sitting as
the judge of the dead in company with assessors.
Before him stands the balance on which the heart of
the deceased is to be weighed against Truth. The
dead makes a confession in which he declares that
he is free from a long list of sins. Many of the of-
fenses which he disclaims having committed are
mere breaches of religious or magical etiquette, but
others make it clear that no man is now considered
" justified " and fit to enter the happy world of the
dead unless he declares himself free from all the or-
dinary sins. It is true that the soul's attitude before
the heavenly court has nothing of the humility of a
confession. The soul is instructed by the '* Book of
the Dead " to affirm his innocence of murder, steal-
ing, cheating, lying, avariciousness, pride, covetous-
ness, etc. This is not yet the genuine ethical rela-
tion that came to exist later on between moralized
gods and sensitive consciences.
The transformation of the primary belief into an
instrument of social control involves the appearance
either of the belief in the destruction of the wicked
at death, or of the existence of several abodes for the
dead — of at least one place of reward and one of
punishment. I do not propose to write a history of
the differentiation of the original ghost-land into a
heaven and a hell. My task is merely to indicate
the influence of the realization of ethical values upon
the primary conception of immortality. It is one
38 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
of the most interesting, because definite, instances
of the molding of a belief under the influence of so-
cial need.
Ethical conditions of admission to the other life
did not spread from Egypt to the neighboring na-
tions. They did not even remain a vital force in the
Egyptian religion itself ; they shared the general de-
terioration which overtook the nation. Neither
among the Babylonians nor among the Greeks, is
there any indication of a separation of the dead on
a moral basis. " There is nothing to show that
among the Babylonians, either among the populace
or in the schools, a belief arose in a paradise whither
privileged persons were transported after death ; nor
is any distinction made by them between the good
and the bad, so far as future habitation is concerned.
All mankind, kings and subjects, virtuous and wicked
go to Aralu. Those who have obtained the good will
of the gods receive their reward in this world by a
life of happiness and good health." " In Greece, all
men at death went to Hades. The two exceptions
we shall discuss in another connection stand quite
outside our present line of thought; for, neither
Menelaus nor Ganymede passed through death, and
their translation was not a reward for virtue.
Elysium, whereto the former was conveyed is not
a Walhalla for heroes, nor a Paradise for the good.
In these nations, destiny held in store the same
lot for every man, and that lot was a miserable one.
It required apparently the moral energy of the He-
*' Morris Jastrow: Religion of Babylonia and Assyria;
1898. Page 578.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 39
brew people to transform again the idea of continu-
ation after death into an instrument of retributive
justice and to introduce it, as a part of the Christian
religion, throughout the civilized world. The earli-
est indication of a separation of the good from the
wicked is found in Isaiah" (about 330 B. c.) by
whom resurrection is attributed only to the just.
But it is resurrection on this earth, not life in
heaven which the prophet announces. In Daniel *'
(about 160 B. C.) one reads, "And many of them
that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some
to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlast-
ing contempt." In the Book of Enoch is found the
mention of four caves. The Angel Raphael explains
that they are to receive the dead until the great day
of judgment. In one of the caves, there is a bright
spring of water intended for the spirits of the right-
eous. Another cave is for the sinners; there they
shall remain " in great pain until the great day of
judgment and punishment and torment of the ac-
cursed forever, so that there may be retribution for
their spirits." *'
The consideration of the conditions of admission
to the other life has brought us face to face with the
much discussed problem of the relation of ethics to
religion. Diametrically opposite views are ex-
'* R. H. Charles: A Critical History of the Doctrine of the
Future Life in Israel, in Judaism, and in Christianity ; Ox-
ford; 1912. Chapter XXVI: 1-19.
*" Chapter XII: 2.
'' Chapter XXII.
40 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
pressed and hotly defended regarding this relation,
some would find in religion the origin of all morality.
It is, they say, '* an incontestable fact that primi-
tive morality stands in very close connection v^ith
primitive religion, and indeed that the beginnings of
all social customs and legal ordinances are directly
derived from religious notions and ceremonial prac-
tices." Others affirm that " a mass of facts demon-
strate that originally the religious feeling is not only
foreign to morality, but is in contradiction to it."
Let us stop a moment to consider the meaning of
what we have learned regarding the relation of mor-
ality to the conception of immortality.
The problem is no longer one for speculation."
The facts mentioned in the preceding pages, incom-
plete as they are, suffice nevertheless to show that
moral values do not exist in men's ideas of the con-
ditions of admittance to the other life before they
are recognized in earthly relations. The value of
courage and of the observance of customs making for
tribal cohesion and cooperation, are not first given
as condition of admission to a happy land beyond,
and later discovered to be essential to the prosperity
of the social group. Long before King Pepi thought
he could gain heaven by the exertion of mere magical
power, he appreciated in his people the elementary
virtues they practiced, and he enforced them in the
lands under his law. Much later only did these vir-
*' See E. Westermarck : The Origin and Development of
Moral Ideas.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 41
I
tues appear in the judgment of Osiris as conditions
of admission to a happy life beyond death.
Similarly the Babylonians, the Greeks, and the
Hebrews, centuries before the appearance of moral
considerations in their conception of immortality,
were alive to the importance of " righteousness."
Little by little, out of the pains and the joys of
earthly existence, moral values won recognition.
Then, and then only, did it occur to Yahweh to pre-
fer justice and benevolence to the slaughter of sac-
rificial bullocks ; then only did he cease to punish the
innocent with the guilty. We shall see in a subse-
quent chapter how from the moment Yahweh was
supposed to hold each individual responsible for his
own deeds, the idea of the insufficiency of this
earthly life in order to satisfy the demands of jus-
tice came to the front and prepared the way for the
new immortality.
The notion of immortality, like that of gods, be-
came gradually a pedagogical device in the interest
of social and individual morality. That is why in
the heaven and the hell described by the ethical re-
ligions there is no parity between the reward and
the virtue of the rewarded, or between the punish-
ment and the guilt of the punished ; all are rewarded
or punished alike. In a judgment founded exclu-
sively on the demands of justice, an eternity of bliss
and an eternity of torture would be allotted to no
42 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
one. If, however, to an imperfect sense of justice
be added a desire to act as powerfully as possible
upon the living, both to encourage them to do good
and to deter them from doing evil, then the current
notions of heaven and of hell may come into exist-
ence. It is, of course, unnecessary to suppose that
in the formation of these conceptions man worked
with a fully conscious purpose.
Present knowledge regarding the relation of ethics
to religion contradicts both the opinions we have
quoted: morality is not derived from religion; and
religion is not in contradiction with morality.
Rather must we say that morality begins in human
social relations, and passes from them to the rela-
tions maintained with the other life and with the
gods. Or, if one prefers to consider ghosts and gods
as inseparable elements of the primary social organ-
ism, then we should say that morality is born in that
all-embracing psychical atmosphere. But it does not
follow from that fact that the rise and development
of morality are conditioned by belief in gods and in
immortality. Merely human relations are sufficient
to the production of ethical appreciations. The in-
visible ghosts and gods would never have been
thought interested in the morality of the tribe, had
not the leaders realized the importance of courage,
of loyalty, of respect for neighbors' possessions, and
of the other elementary virtues. It was when the dis-
astrous consequence of their absence became evident
that the gods were made to sanction these virtues.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 43
I conjecture that God or no God, immortality or no
immortality, the essential morality of man would
have been little different from what it is/'
' *' It may happen that a tribal god falls below the ideal of
a chief Miss Kingsley in a description of the very mterest-
fnfreatons maintained by a chief of the west coast of
Africa with hi? god, reports that to her oft repeated ques-
tion " Is he good?" a negative answer was regularly given
bv the natives! except when they had been under the influ-
ence of the missionaries. " No," they say firmly, ^e ^^ ^^^
that vou call good; he lets things go too much, he cares about
hir^seH only " And she adds, " I have heard him called lazy
to? much bad person for business,' and a dozen things of
that sort " Mary H. Kingsley: The Forms of Apparition m
wtt Africa, Proc. of Soc. for Psychical Research, Vol. XIV;
1898; pages 334, 335. .
Thi<; cod like the god to whom contemporary Christians
priy for rlin and sunfhine, whom they supplicate for help in
^ar! and thank for bloody successes, has not kept pace with
the standards of the best among those who worship him.
CHAPTER II
THE ORIGIN OF THE GHOST-IDEA, AND THE
DIFFERENTIATION OF THE GHOST
FROM THE SOUL
I. THE ORIGIN OF THE GHOST IDEA.
The descriptions of the preceding chapter bring
out in high relief two characteristic traits of the
belief ' in survival, (a) Continuation is as firmly
held among savages as the belief in the existence of
any object perceived by the senses, (b) The savage
concerns himself but little with his own fate. His
belief in continuation expresses itself chiefly in a
concern for the action of ghosts upon him while he
is in this world.
These two traits seem to indicate that the belief
in continuation is not born of a desire for it ; for in-
stance, to the realization of the briefness and incom-
pleteness of this life; or to an instinctive recoil be-
fore annihilation at death, but, rather, that it is im-
posed upon the believer, independently of his wishes,
just as the belief in the existence of dangerous ani-
mals lurking in the nearby forest.
' It was hardly possible for me, when speaking of con-
tinuation after death, always to use the terms " idea," " con-
ception," and " belief " according to strict psychological
usage. As a matter of fact, as soon as the conception of
continuation dawned upon the savage, it was accepted, acted
upon, as if it corresponded to an external reality. So that,
for the savage, it never was a mere conception, but always
a belief.
44
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 45
It is obvious that a sensory demonstration, wit-
nessed by every one, of the existence of ghosts would
produce a belief possessing the universality and the
firmness actually belonging to that belief; whereas
an inference, whether from objective facts or from
subjective experiences, might not present these char-
acteristics. And it is equally obvious that had the
belief been in any substantial degree the product of
desire, it would have been conceived so as to gratify
the desire, or desires, from which it had sprung.
To these theoretical remarks upon the most prob-
able kind of origin of the ghost-conception, should
be added that to infer from any sort of fact the
existence of objects not perceived by the senses, in-
volves mental processes of a higher order than direct
perception, whether illusory or real. To have
evolved the ghost-idea because, for instance, of a dis-
content with destruction at death, would imply a
creative activity greatly superior to the one in-
volved in mistaking a mental image for an objective
reality.
The proclivity of untutored man to personify nat-
ural phenomena is well known. The savage clothes
in a more or less definite human or animal shape the
power of the cloud, the wind, the thunder, the
stream, the cataracts, etc. As a consequence of this
proneness, he lives surrounded by a world of usually
invisible agents conceived in the likenes of man or of
animals. This we know. But we are not completely
informed regarding the moment when this person-
ification of nature began. We possess no fact that
would enable us conclusively to place the time of the
46 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
appearance of that mental habit with reference to
the appearance of the belief in survival after death
in the form of ghosts. The probability is, however,
that personification of the more striking natural
phenomena preceded the ghost-belief. For, the for-
mer lies nearer at hand than the latter. How easy
and natural it is to personify forces, physical, is
made evident by the behavior of children. Hardly
have they begun to talk, when they ask after the
cause of the manifestations of power they observe.
A very early solution of the problem takes the form
of the personification of the power : it is a bear that
made the noise heard in the dark room.'
It is not at all necessary to the validity of the
theory of the origin of the belief in ghosts we are
about to set forth, that that belief should have been
preceded by the personification of nature. Should
it have been so, however, the belief in ghosts would
have arisen more readily, since man would have been
already familiar with the invisible existence about
him of man-like agents. Our problem is in any case
substantially different from that of the origin of
the personification of natural forces. We are to
account for the conviction that, after death, human
beings continue to exist in a form and with habits
similar to those that were his before death, even
though the body decomposes and falls to pieces.
With these introductory considerations in mind,
let us ask, " What is, or what are the probable
* I do not imply here that animism was, as E. B. Tylor
maintained, the first philosophy, but merely that personifica-
tion was a very early process indeed. On the question of
animism and primitive dynamism, see chapter four of A
Psychological Study of Religion.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 47
sources of the conception of survival after death? "
Are there not striking and frequent experiences of
a perceptual character, belonging to all or to most
men however primitive, v^hich v^ould provide both
the ghost-conception itself and the demonstration
of its objective truth?
MEMORY-IMAGES EXTERIORIZED UNDER THE
INFLUENCE OF EMOTION
Let us try to place ourselves in the situation of
primitive man when in the presence of death and of
the corpse. The simplest possible reaction to that
situation does certainly not involve the thought that,
somehow or other, there is, besides the visible corpse,
a something else, invisible, capable of acting like a
human person and genetically connected with the
dead person. The simplest reaction is that of the
animal who betrays in his behavior no such belief.
It is, however, greatly doubtful that this simplest
attitude ever could have been that of man.
When the dead was a person of mark — it does
not much matter in what way — there remained a
vivid memory of him. May not the chief, the war-
rior, the trusted comrade, have appeared at times to
the mind's eye in concrete situations full of emo-
tional quality ? And may not these experiences have
been vivid enough to call forth overt reactions, a
cry, a word, a movement of the hand or of the whole
body? Any one who dreams in sleep, may dream
when awake. We know enough of the savage and
of the young child to afRrm that they are at times
moved by revived past experiences or by creations
48 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
of their fancy. May not the belief in survival have
had this origin.
I am not asking whether ordinary memory-images
could have sufficed to produce the belief in continu-
tion. Still less am I supposing that the savage
usually confuses his idea of an object v^ith the object
itself, that he fails to discriminate between the thing
thought of and the thing itself. To systematically
mistake the thing thought of for one actually pres-
ent to the senses, would be to fail in that which is a
primary condition of existence. A being who should
usually suffer from that confusion could have had
but the briefest of existence. The very function of
memory-images, the usefulnes to which they owe
their existence, involves this discrimination. That
which I suggest is that under specific conditions,
for instance death and the presence of the corpse,
memory-images may be so vivified as to be taken
for external realties.
THE " SENSE OF PRESENCE ''
Even in the absence of perception by any one or
several of the five senses, an irresistible '* sense '' of
the presence of some one may be experienced. Hal-
lucinations of this kind form a class by themselves,
instances of which may be found in religious biog-
raphies and in the Reports of the Society for
Psychical Research. I do not know that any atten-
tion has been paid them in connection with the origin
of the belief in survival after death. A classical
instance of this type of hallucination is provided by
St. Theresa.' She relates that in 1559 she had for
Autobiography. Chapter XXV.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 49
the first time the " sensation of the presence of our
Lord Jesus Christ." Subsequently, she became fa-
miliar with hallucinatory-images (pseudo-hallucina-
tions) and hallucinations. At first, however, none
of the five senses were involved. She tells us that
she saw Christ neither with the eyes of the body,
nor with those of the soul. By this she means that
her experience involved neither visual perception nor
visual image. Yet, it was a specific and convincing
experience of the presence of Christ, not to be as-
similated with the mere thought of some one's pres-
ence.
Experiences of this sort, though rare, come to
most of us in our religious life or outside of it. I
have collected a considerable number of spontaneous
instances of them, and produced others experimen-
tally for a psychological study of prayer. The fol-
lowing is related by a trustworthy person.
" It was evening. I was in my room upstairs,
dressing, in order to join the family waiting for me
downstairs. I could hear plainly the voice of my
brother talking in the sitting-room. The electric
lights were up in my room, the door of which was
open. Suddenly, I was aware of the presence of my
sister back of me. I had neither seen nor heard her
come in. I spoke to her. As she did not answer,
I turned round. I was alone in my room. I never
was so surprised in my life, for I felt as certain that
she was there, as if I had seen her in the clearest
of light. I remained for some time thrilled and
dazed ; it took me some time to regain my composure.
I did not say anything to the family, because I
thought they would make fun of me."
50 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
The characteristics of the sense of presence to
which attentions should be paid are, (1) the absence
not only of the ordinary sensory indications of the
presence of a person, but also, at least initially, of
any illusion of sight, sound, or touch; (2) neverthe-
less, the conviction of presence possesses the con-
creteness belonging to actual perception. In this, it
separates itself clearly from the kind of assurance
due to inference, as when from the movement of a
light across the windows of a house, the presence of
a person in it is inferred.
Whence this mastering sense of external reality
in the absence of the ordinary perceptions? With-
out entering here into a long psychological explana-
tion, we may say that the essential constituents of
the experience of the presence of a person, in a case
of ordinary perception, are neither sight, nor sound,
not even touch ; but the very complex sensory-motor
activities which commonly follow upon these per-
ceptions. When we see some one, and " feel " his
presence, our whole psycho-physical attitude is mod-
ified; the facial and bodily expressions are altered,
feelings and emotions are generated — feelings and
emotions which differ with the person in the presence
of whom we are — and, in addition, thought is given
a new direction; it centers now about our relations
with the person of the presence of whom we are
aware. Unless these various, highly complex activ-
ities are set up, the actual perception of the person
does not produce the particular experience described
here by the phrase " sense of presence " ; there is in-
stead merely an awareness of a presence, without the
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 51
warm sense of reality which belongs to it when upon
sight follows the multiple reactions I have indicated.
The mere seeing a person to whom we are indifferent,
who does not " get hold '" of us; and that which hap-
pens to the school-boy in the presence of his master,
to the lover descrying the beloved, or to the mother
hearing the voice of her child, are experiences clearly
different ; the latter usually include the sense, or feel-
ing of a presence ; the former does not, it is merely
a knowledge of a presence. The sophisticated per-
son himself cannot, while the experience is upon him,
resist the sense of presence, although, afterwards, he
may call it an hallucination.
This psychological explanation affirms, in short,
that the sense of presence is conditioned essentially
not by the report of any or all of the five senses.
but by reaction-processes which take place when we
are in the presence of a person who does not leave us
cold. The visual or other external sensations which
comimonly initiate these essential responses are. ac-
cording to the theory, not the only possible de-
terminants of these reactions ; they may be otherwise
initiated.
But, whether this theory be adequate or not. the
fact itself is not to be questioned : there are those
among us who, under the conditions I have de-
scribed, have vivid experiences of the presence of
absent persons. If we may asume that original
man was subject to experiences of this sort, their
bearing upon the origin of the belief in continuation
after death is obvious. As to the probability of that
52 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
assumption, I can only say that I know of no rea-
son that would discredit it.
I have attempted to show that the memory-image,
or, in the absence of an image, the idea of a dead per-
son is vitalized into an irresistible sense of presence
whenever the reactions which are the essential con-
ditions of that experience are produced. I have
also suggested that death and the presence of the
corpse are circumstances which may bring about
this result. The experiences of the type I have
described under the name " sense of presence " dem-
onstrate, furthermore, that obscure circumstances
may, in the absence of any of the causes we should
naturally look for, lead to the realization of the con-
ditions of the feeling of the presence of a person not
bodily present. That the ghost-belief may have
been due to this class of experience, will appear the
more probable when it is observed that it involves
only the simplest mental operations.
DREAMS
In his epoch-making work, Primitive Culture,* Ed-
ward B. Tylor derives the belief in ghosts and spirits
* PriTnitive Culture. Vol. I. Chapter XI.
We read in Hobbes' Leviathan, " And for the matter, or
substance of the Invisible Agents, so fancied, they could not
by natural cogitation, fall upon any other conceit, but that
it was the same with that of the Soule of man; and that the
Soule of man was of the same substance with that which
appeareth in a Dream, to one that sleepeth ; or in a Looking-
glasse, to one that is awake; which, men not knowing that
such apparitions are nothing else but creatures of the Fancy,
think to be real and external Substances; and therefore call
them Ghosts."
This passage is sometimes misunderstood. The preceding
paragraph makes it clear that Hobbes does not affirm that
dreams are the cause of the idea of invisible agents. Dreams
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 53
from dreams and trances. After having enjoyed
for several decades unquestioned assent, objections
are now raised against that theory, and efforts are
made to replace it by other theories.
It is sometimes affirmed as an objection to the
dream origin of the ghost-idea, that children regard
dreaming as a matter of course, that they realize the
difference between dreams and waking, and that
** there is no case on record of a child inferring from
dreams the existence of a soul, or of a reality differ-
ent from the phenomenal." ' It is no doubt true
that children take dreams as something natural, and
that usually they do not regard them as realities;
but it does not follow from this that they never do
so. The child-study literature provides sufficient ex-
amples of children who. when awake, behave for a
while as if they expected to encounter the objects
of their dreams.
I do not think that the so-called '' make believe "
plays of imaginative children would bear out the
statement that they never believe in the reality of
the creations of their fancy. That which is true,
gave merely, as he puts it, the " matter, or substance of the
idea of Invisible Agents." The idea itself originated from
the " perpetual fear, always accompanying mankind in the
ignorance of causes." This fear '* must needs have for object
something. And therefore when there is nothing to be seen,
there is nothing to accuse, either of their good, or evil for-
tune, but some Power or Agent invisible."
Leviathan, ed. A. R. Waller; 1904. Chapter XII, page 71.
Cicero speaks of apparitions in dreams, if not as the origin
of the belief, at least as the chief cause of its persistence and
extension. See Gaston Boissier: La Religion Romaine
d'Auguste aux AntoniJis: Paris; Hachette; 1878. Vol. I, page
265.
'Ernest Crawley: The Idea of the Soul: London; A. and
C. Black, 1909. Pages 13-14.
54 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
is that their belief is fleeting. This is probably
sufficiently accounted for by the attitude of the adult
towards these dreams and fancies: he denies them,
in words and actions. What we know of children,
leads rather to the opinion that were a company of
them, including some of the imaginative ones, left to
themselves, they would probably develop a belief in
invisible things and enter into some kind of rela-
tion with them.
We are in the habit of separating sharply the per-
ceptions of waking life from dreams ; to the former
only do we ascribe objective reality. For the sav-
age, however, dreams and visions are equally real
with waking perceptions. Spencer and Gillen " tell
us that " what a savage experiences during a dream
is just as real to him as what he sees when he is
awake. The natives have a very definite conception
of the spirit part of an individual, and imagine that
during sleep it can and does wander about freely."
A Cherokee Indian who has dreamt that he was bit-
ten by a snake-ghost, must follow the same treat-
ment as if he had been bitten by a snake when awake,
otherwise the place would swell and ulcerate, per-
haps immediately or even years afterwards.' Sir
Everard im Thurn relates the following incident :
'' One morning, when it was important to me to
get away from camp on the Essequibo River at which
I had been detained for some days by the illness of
some of my Indian companions, I found that one of
' The Northern Tribes of Central Australia: London; Mac-
millan; 1904. Page 451.
^ James Mooney : Report of the Bureau of EthnoL, 1897-98,
XIX; page 295.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 55
the invalids, a young Macusi. though better in health,
was so enraged against me that he refused to stir,
for he declared that, with great want of considera-
tion for his weak health, I had taken him out during
the night and had made him haul the canoe up a
series of difficult cataracts. Nothing could persuade
him that this was a dream, and it was some time be-
fore he was so far pacified as to throw himself sulk-
ily in the bottom of the canoe. At that time we
were all suffering from a great scarcity of food. and.
hunger having its usual effect in producing \i\id
dreams, similar effects frequently occurred. More
than once the men declared in the morning that some
absent men, whom they named, had come during the
night, and had beaten or otherwise maltreated them :
and they insisted on much rubbing of the bruised
parts of their bodies." '
No one acquainted with primitive peoples has ever
denied that they give to dreams and visions the in-
terpretation I have illustrated. But belief in the
objective reality of dreams and \isions does not
necessarily imply that the conception of ghost arose
from these experiences. The belief in the reality
of dreams might be a consequence of these ideas,
instead of their cause. Such is the opinion of Durk-
heim. But his attack upon the accepted theory ' —
presumably the strongest that can be made — fails
altogether to show the inadequacy of that theory- to
account for the production of the idea of, and of
■ Quoted by Edward Clodd in Anijuisyn: Loyidoyw Archibald
Constable and Company; 1905. Pages 31-32, from The Vi-
dians of Guiana,
' Loc. cit., pages 78-91, 382-386.
56 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
the belief in survival after death. I submit in small
print Durkheim's animadversions and my own coun-
ter criticism.
1. The belief in souls or ghosts is not the simplest way
to account for dreams and visions. Why should not man
instead have imagined that he could see at a distance
through all kinds of obstacles? This is a simpler idea than
that of a double made of a semi-invisible, ethereal substance.
This explanation might be the simpler one if, in dreams,
the person dreamt of and the dreamer himself were not so
often together. When they are both in the same hut, or at
the foot of the same tree, will the assumption of sight
through an obstacle be pertinent? Certainly dreams of this
description will require another explanation.
2. Many dreams are refractory to the ghost-interpreta-
tion; for instance, dreams of things that we have done in
the past. The double might transport himself into the fu-
ture, but how could he live over again the past existence of
the body to which he belonged? How could a man when
awake really believe that he has taken part in events which
he knows to have taken place long ago? It is much more
natural that he should think of memories since these at least
are familiar to him.
It is not at all necessary that the ghost-theory should fit
all dreams. Certain dreams might remain a mystery, or
be explained otherwise than by the existence of souls, — as
memories, for instance. I do not know whether as a matter
of fact the savage does this. But whether he does or not,
it is evident that a great many dreams could not possibly
be explained by him as recollections.
3. How could the savage be so stupid and non-inquisitive
as not to be impressed by the fact that the person whose
alleged double has conversed with his own double while he
slept, had also had dreams that same night and was another
person than his own double? There is, thinks Durkheim,
some naivete in the blind credulity ascribed to primitive man
by this theory.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 57
The naivete thus attributed to the savage does not seem
to be excessive. Certain beliefs of some of our contempo-
raries are almost as childish. For the rest, this objection
does not refer to ghosts surviving after death, but only to
" doubles " able to leave the body during sleep.
4 Even though the ghost-explanation should be suffi-
cient to account for all dreams, it would remain unlikely
that man ever sought so early for an explanation of his
dreams; they are too infrequent, and too ^^^^f^^'^^^^l^
produced " a system of belief as important as that of sur-
vival after death. They may at best have served to confirm
the idea, when once in existence." " What is dreaming to us?
How small a place it holds ... and how surprismg it is
that the unfortunate Australian spends so much energy m
evolving a theory of it."
To this last objection, I answer that in order to occasion
the belief in ghosts, it is not necessary that ever^ indmdu^^^
should frequently have startling dreams. Often enough
dreams are so vivid and so painful, or so elating, that I do
not see how they could escape the attention of the savage
when he wakes from them. When, in addition to possessing
an intense emotional quality, they happen to be violent y
contradicted by some experience of waking life immediate y
following, it seems inadmissable that an explanation should
not be sought. Suppose, for instance, that a savage feeling
in a dream the hands of his enemy around his throat,
awakens as he plunges his knife through his enemy s heart.
Imagine further that as he rises panting, there, close to
him, stands whole and hearty, the enemy he has just killed.
Under these circumstances, most savages would be conscious
of a riddle, would feel the need of an explanation; and at
least some of them might, it seems to me, accept the actual
existence of a " double." From that to the essential elements
of the ghost theory, the steps are easy enough for primitive
man to take.
To Durkheim's statement that there is a marked dispro-
portion between the effect of the ghost-idea and its cause,
when that cause is supposed to be dreams^ this answer is
58 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
sufficient; circumstances favoring, insignificant causes may
produce gigantic effects. Once in existence, the idea of sur-
vival was the more likely to spread and to grow deep roots
in that it was a marvelously interesting idea and that its
field of usefulness as a principle of explanation was not
limited to dreams and visions. If ghosts exist, then a host
of facts may be explained: ghosts bring them about! What
idea could be better fitted to captivate the imagination and
to stir credulous persons to their depths than that of the
active presence about them of those who were their com-
panions or predecessors on earth?
VISIONS
To dreams must be added the visions of waking
life, of fever, and of other abnormal conditions.
The mentally sound savage is not less, but more
subject to visions than the sound-minded civilized
man. The hallucinations of waking life are, on the
whole, more startling than dreams in their effect
upon the seer. This, for the very reason that they
take place during the waking life ; that circumstance
brings them in closer connection with the waking
consciousness, and makes it more difficult to ignore
them or to dismiss them as irrelevant. To the wit-
nesses, the dramatic behavior of the hallucinated
may convey, more vividly and irresistibly than a
verbal account, a sense of invisible presences.
It is well known that persons of great mental dis-
tinction and ability, as well as commonplace ones,
have been favored by or plagued with visions of such
vividness and convincingness that they have not
been able to escape belief in their reality. In many
instances such visions have played a determining
role in great social movements, particularly in re-
ligions.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 59
The savage is not so well equipped as the civilized
to resist the intrinsic claims of visions to authentic-
ity. The profound influence which a gifted sav-
age, suffering from occasional hallucinations, might
exercise upon his contemporaries, can hardly be
overestimated. It is, I think, one of the errors of
anthropologists not to have taken sufficiently into
account, when tracing origins, the unusual person,
the genius. For, among savages also there are
leaders, originators; and their function is no less
considerable than among us. The recognition, un-
der which we are now in some respects suffering, of
the fundamental social nature of man and of his
profound and multiple dependence upon his physical
and psychical environment, accounts probably for a
degree of blindness to individual achievements in
social development. Among savages, as among us,
and in the same sense as among us, general beliefs
have had individual origins.
The visions of waking life are, it is true, unusual
experiences, unknown to the great majority of civi-
lized beings ; but they are far more frequent among
the ignorant, uncritical, and easily impressed sav-
ages. Who will venture to affirm that when support-
ed by the universal experience of dreams and of
vivid memory-images, and by the sense of presence,
no serious significance can belong to visions in the
production of the belief in ghosts because they are
not common enough?
These four types of related experiences, the ex-
teriorization of vivid memory-images, the sense of
presence, dreams, and the visions of waking life, all
60 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
possess, if in various degrees, the qualifications re-
quired to lead to the savage's belief in survival after
death. They are each psychologically equivalent to
a direct sensory apprehension of survival ; thus, they
do not imply intelligence of a higher level than can
be predicated of any one possessing speech, however
rudimentary. These experiences, furthermore, all
point not to a paradise promising the gratification
of universal desires, but to such a lot as is actually
ascribed to the ghost.
Are we to hold that these four related types of
experience, each contributed equally to the formation
of the belief in survival after death, or that one or
several of them were the determinant factors, and
that the others served merely to confirm the belief?
To these queries I cannot give any answer; and it
does not seem to me very important that we should
be able to answer them, it is enough that we should
have discovered the class of experiences from which
the belief arose. It is not the product of an infer-
ence, it is not an interpretation, but simply the con-
sequence of a lack of the ability to discriminate cer-
tain merely subjective experiences from the percep-
tion of external objects.
The causes of the idea of survival and of belief in
it, set forth in the preceding pages, were probably
supplemented and the conception they produced
modified, by certain naive convictions, innate yearn-
ings, and by diverse observations which we shall
now rapidly consider.
The Natural Endlessness of Man. — Among many
tribe? are found myths presupposing the natural
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 61
endlessness of man. Australian natives speak of an-
cestors who never died. They disappeared from
view without passing through death and bodily de-
composition. A well known Babylonian-Hebraic
story explains the introduction of death into the
world as the consequence of the evil deeds of man.
In many tribes now living, all forms of death are
looked upon as the work either of magic or of spirits.
These tribes are probably at a lower level of de-
velopment than others, such as the Kafirs and the
Melanesians, among whom a third cause is known:
" natural " death. These people *' make up their
minds as the sickness comes whether it is natural
or not. The more important the individual who is
sick, the more likely his sickness is to be ascribed
to the anger of a ghost whom he has offended, or to
witchcraft. No great man would like to be told
that he was ill by natural weakness or decay." ''
Mr. Dudley Kidd tells us that according to the na-
tives of South Africa, " to start with, there is sick-
ness which is supposed to be caused by the action of
ancestral spirits or by fabulous monsters. Secondly,
there is sickness which is caused by the magical prac-
tices of some evil person who is using witchcraft in
secret. Thirdly, there is sickness which comes from
neither of these causes, and remains unexplained. It
is said to be *only sickness, and nothing more.' This
third form of sickness is, I think, the commonest.
Yet most writers wholly ignore it or deny its exist-
ence. It may happen that an attack of indigestion
is one day attributed to the action of witch or wiz-
R. H. Codrington: The Melanesians; page 194,
62 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
ard ; another day, the trouble is put down to the ac-
count of ancestral spirits; on a third occasion, the
people may be at a loss to account for it, and so may
dism.iss the problem by saying that it is merely sick-
ness. It is quite common to hear natives say that
they are at a loss to account for some special case of
illness. ... In some cases they do not even trouble to
consult a diviner; they speedily recognize the sick-
ness as due to natural causes. In such a case it needs
no explanation. If they think that some friends of
theirs know of a remedy, they will try it on their own
initiative, or may even go off to a white man to ask
for some of his medicine. . . . The Kafirs quite rec-
ognize that there are types of diesase which are in-
herited, and have not been caused by magic or by
ancestral spirits." '' There is here the beginning
at least of a recognition of what civilized man calls
'' natural " causes.
We may note in passing some of the terrible con-
sequences of the belief in the magical cause of death.
In many tribes, deaths ascribed to magic may result
in the deaths of not only one but a dozen or more
suspected persons who are put through a murderous
ordeal supposed to be fatal to the guilty person only.
'' A French official tells us that among the Neyaux of
the Ivory Coast similar beliefs and practices are vis-
ibly depopulating the country, every single natural
death causing the death of four or five persons by
the poison ordeal, which consisted in drinking the
" Frazer: Loc. cit.; pages 55, 56. The French anthropolo-
gists, Durkheim, Levy-Briihl, Mauss, Hubert, affirm with-
out hesitation the universality of this belief.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 63
decoction of a red bark called by the natives boduni.
At the death of a chief, fifteen men and women per-
ished in this way. The French government had great
diflficulty in suppressing the ordeal ; for the deluded
natives firmly believed in the justice of the test and
therefore submitted to it willingly in the full con-
sciousness of their innocence." '*
These two conceptions, the idea of the natural
deathlessness of man and that of continuation after
death, are of course far from identical; the former,
which sees in death the result of accidental causes, is
consistent with belief in annihilation at death; the
latter, which considers death as an unavoidable, nat-
ural event, is consistent with the affirmation of the
continuation of life in the face of the starthng fact
of death.
But why should man ever have imagined that,
were it not for evil intervention, he would never
have known death? Because life implies its own
continuation. The m.ore intensely one lives, the
more difficult it is to think of destruction, and the
more preposterous that idea seems when it chances to
gain access to the mind. An indefinite idea of con-
tinuation is implied, it seems, in the very fact of
conscious existence; for, to live is to look forward.
\Vhen this implicit assumption becomes explicit, the
easier way of accounting for the contradiction in-
flicted upon it by death is to accuse some nefarious
power of having maliciously put an end to that which
otherwise would have continued. But you say, man
'' Frazer: Loc. cit.; page 52. Lecture II contains a selec-
tion of savage practices regarding the causes of death.
64 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
is born, grows, attains maturity, and then slowly
and gradually decays until he falls lifeless ; and this
is true not only of man but of all animals and plants.
Is not this a sufficient indication of the " natural-
ness " of death? Yes, we answer, sufficient it is to
those who have become imbued with a scientific con-
ception of life, not to others : the Babylonian who re-
lated to his children the story of original freedom
from death was still far removed from that stage.
The myths that we have mentioned bring to light
a natural aversion to a cessation of life ; an aversion
which is to be regarded as an unavoidable accom-
paniment of the instinct of self-preservation and as
one of the forces supporting belief in continuation
after death when once that conception has taken
shape.
The Influence of Death. — Primitive man, as we
know him, lives too much in the present to be dis-
turbed by fear of the death-crisis, unless it be im-
minent, and then his fear, being little more than an
instinctive recoil, does not probably lead him fur-
ther.
To the semi-civilized the more profound and sig-
nificant aspect of death arises either from its mys-
tery or from the wretchedness attributed to the
shades and the breaking of earthly ties. The dom-
inant note of the Pyramid Texts is an "insistent,
ever passionate protest against death." It expresses
humanity's earliest supreme revolt against the great
darkness and silence from which none returns."
'"J. H. Breasted: Development of Religious Thought in
Ancient Egypt: New York; Scribner; 1912. Page 91.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 65
For the civilized who have not found peace in a satis-
fying faith, it is again the mystery beyond the grave,
the unanswerable query of Hamlet, which torments,
not the death-crisis :
" To die, — to sleep ;
To sleep! perchance to dream; — ay, there's the rub;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
But that the dread of something after death.
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will;
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of ? " ''
The relative insignificance of the death-crisis is
well shown by the indifference to it of those who
cherish a faith in a satisfactory future existence.
To the Christian, the Valley of the Shadow of Death
is made brilliant by the light streaming from the
heavenly Jerusalem. He exclaims, '* 0 death, where
is thy sting? 0 grave where is thy victory?'' "'
Long before the advent of Christianity, there were
people who went to their death rejoicing in the as-
surance of a land abounding in everything the heart
could desire. In old Egypt, the fear of death had
been conquered by those who believed in the religion
of the Sun-God. Wiedemann writes of them that
they dwelt much and gladly on the thought of death ;
it had no particular terror for them, any more than
for modern Orientals. To them death was no final
end but only an interruption of their existence."
''Hamlet, Act III, Sc. 1.
^^I Cor., 15: 55.
'* Wiedemann: Loc. cit., page 14.
One should remember in this connection the universal tes-
timony of physicians that, in the words of a noted surgeon.
66 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
But these remarks have no reference to the estab-
lishment of the belief in continuation after death,
for we are not at liberty to suppose that original
man was tormented by Hamlet's query, still less that
in a transcendent act of creative imagination he
negated the work of death by positing beyond the
grave another existence. This was not within his
m.eans. No other proof that the savage's belief in
continuation did not have this origin is wanted than
the nature of his after-life: it is not that which it
would necessarily have been, had it arisen from the
desire for the satisfaction of moral cravings.
Vegetation a7id Insect Metamorphosis. — The idea
of survival after death is sometimes supposed to have
had its origin in those well known and very common
facts, the growth of vegetation from seeds, and the
metamorphoses of insects. The grass dies in the
autumn and sprouts again in the spring, out of the
nut, a tree germinates; and the grub, dead though it
seems, gives birth to a butterfly. To infer from
these and similar facts that man continues after
the process of dying is rarely painful or even unwelcome
to the patient, though full of sorrow to his family. A happy
unconsciousness in nearly all cases shields the dying man
from pain. The weakness, the fever, the parched lips, the
labored breathing are all unfelt. Most people die quietly
and often almost imperceptibly . . . Even when convulsive
movements occur, they are entirely independent of conscious-
ness; merely physical in origin and character, and absolutely
unattended by any suffering." In the rare cases when the
death bed is attended by terror, it is due, we are told, to
lurid images of a terrible hereafter. Scott who questioned
sixteen very old persons, reports that 94 percent, had no
desire to live, and that 70 per cent, longed to die. — Colin A.
Scott: Old Age and Death; Amer. Jour, of Psv.. 1896-97
VIII. Pages 67-122.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 67
death would involve mental operations of a higher
order than are those implied in the false perceptions
which, according to the theory we have accepted,
produced the belief
Insect metamorphosis is a fact known to certain
savages. Spencer and Gillen describe a ceremony
of the witchetty grub totem which includes an imi-
tation of the insect (maegwa) just emerging from
the crysalis.'' The influence which the observation
of insect metamorphosis may have had upon the
establishment of the belief in survival after death,
is, however, beyond our ken.
The sprouting of vegetation from seeds is a fact
more easily discovered than insect metamorphosis.
The savage is certainly interested in it. But what
a step we are expecting him to take, if we suppose
him to think that because seeds produce new
growths, corpses produce ghosts! The analogy
should lead him to think rather that corpses produce
new men. Dacotas and Esquimaux bury bones ot
dogs and seals, that from them new animals may
arise; they do not expect the production of animal-
ghosts.
If we could suppose that before the idea of con-
tinuation appeared, there was felt a vigorous objec-
tion to the limitation of human existence to this
earth, the inference of survival after death from
these facts would be less improbable. But this sup-
position may not be entertained. It is only long after
the formation of the primary conception of immor-
tality that dissatisfaction with the brevity and in-
^* The Northern Tribes of Central Australia. Pages 266-
267.
68 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
completeness of this life appeared. We should re-
call in this connection that at a relatively late stage
of development, v^hen men like Job felt keenly the in-
adequacy of this life and yearned for an extension
of it, their knowledge of the grass that dies to grow
green again in the spring was not sufficient to lead
them to a belief in survival. Job laments that
*' there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it
will sprout again . . . through the scent of water it
will bud. . . . But man dieth, and wasteth away."
The Waxing and the Waning Moon; the Rising
and the Setting Sun. — Human immortality is asso-
ciated in primitive myths with the moon and the sun.
The waning and waxing moon, or the setting and
rising sun symbolize, or are otherwise connected
with the death and the resurrection of man. But
why should we see in the existence of such myths
an indication that the idea of human continuation
after death was derived from these phenomena? The
analogy that can be drawn between phases of the
moon or the setting and rising sun and human re-
birth is lame and far fetched. The probability is
that only long after the appearance of the idea of
human continuation was the analogy thought of.
Physical and Moral Likenesses between a Living
and a Dead Person. — This is a fact not only of fre-
quent occurrence but also obvious enough not to
escape the attention of the savage. How compelling
the likeness between son and father can be, every one
knows. May not the idea of reincarnation, appar-
ently universal among the Australians, and widely
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 69
distributed elsewhere, have found its origin in the
observation of striking likenesses?
If these likenesses were never observed except be-
tween living and dead persons, I do not see how one
could escape the surmise that the belief in reincarna-
tion owes its existence to these observations. For,
in this case, the savage would not be supposed to
have made a more or less far fetched inference, as
from the vegetal to the human kingdom, he would
merely have recognized an obvious likeness and as-
sumed the identity of the similar persons.
But since likenesses are even more frequently ob-
served between persons, both of whom are living,
than between a dead and a living person, the bearing
of likeness upon the origin of the idea of reincar-
nation is not obvious. In any case, resemblances
would suggest reincarnation rather than continua-
tion after death in ghost-land.
Reflections and Echoes. — These are sometimes
mentioned as causes of the ghost-idea. To see one-
self with the life-likeness of a clear reflection, or to
hear one's voice repeated by a good echo, is surely
enough to startle a savage. We know, as a matter
of fact, that he connects reflections and echoes with
ghosts. But that, before the causes we have desig-
nated had produced the belief, reflections and echoes
suggested of themselves the conception and led to
the belief, seems hardly probable.
The Instinct Theory of the Origin of the Belief
in Continuation. — According to this antiquated
theory, the idea of continuation is neither the prod-
uct of a direct perception, real or illusory, nor of an
70 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
inference; it is an instinct. Among the arguments
commonly adduced in favor of this origin, is the
universality of the belief. Those who offer
this argument fail to realize that there are two rad-
ically different conceptions of immortality: the pri-
mary and the modern conceptions; and that, there-
fore, each must be considered separately. Univer-
sality may belong to the primary belief, but we shall
see that the modern belief is not and never has been
universal. The demonstration of the instinctiveness
of one of these two conceptions would not involve the
instinctiveness of the other. And in any case, uni-
versality is not synonymous with instinctiveness.
To label something an instinct, is a convenient but
unscientific way of disposing of a difficult question of
origin. Speak the word and nothing more can be
said on the subject. The present instance is an evi-
dent abuse of this delusive short cut to an explana-
tion. For, in psychology, an instinct is understood
to include a tendency to act in a particular and
more or less definite and biologically useful way,
when in the presence of a definite situation. The
psychologist sees an absurdity in the application of
the term " instinct " to a conception or a belief. One
might claim, it is true, that man possesses the in-
stinct of caring for the dead bodies of his fellow-
men, and that from this instinct arose the idea of
continuation after death. But even then it would
have to be admitted that the idea of immortality
would not thereby have been shown to be itself an
instinct, but merely to have been suggested by an
instinctive activity.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 71
Usually, however, all that is really meant by the
*' instinctiveness " or the " innateness " of this be-
lief, is that it is rooted in universal, innate desires
and yearnings, and then the argument applies only
to the modern belief. The aversion to annihilation ;
and the desire for self-completion, for the fulfill-
ment of justice, for the continance of affection, may
quite properly be designated as innate. But if no
more than this be affirmed, innateness may be claim-
ed for most beliefs with as much, or rather with as
little propriety as for immortality ; for most beliefs
spring directly or indirectly from innate propensi-
ties. Whether that which I have now called ''pro-
pensities " be true instincts or merely vague ten-
dencies, the conceptions and beliefs derived from
them are assuredly neither instincts nor innate pro-
pensities.
A similar confusion is responsible for the appli-
cation of these same terms to religion. Religion is
indeed rooted in the deepest and most universal of
all innate propensities : the love of life, both in its
preserving and enhancing aspects. But if we were
to call instinctive or innate, any and every elabora-
tion, however dependent upon intelligence, when-
ever it has behind it instincts or innate tendencies,
what is there in the whole round of human thought
and activity which would not deserve these epithets ?
II. THE DIFFERENTIATION OF THE GHOST
FROM THE SOUL
A conception of survival arising from memory-
images, the sense of presence, dreams, and visions
would necessarily picture that which survives as
72 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
something like a " double " of the living. Now,
some of the descriptions of anthropologists and trav-
elers conform entirely to this requirement : the sur-
viving individual is in size, general appearance and
mode of life, similar to the departed individual.
What differences there are, are those to be expected
from the nature of the experiences from which the
idea originated : the ghosts are of tenuous material,
usually invisible, able to transport themselves mys-
teriously from place to place and to pass through
the smallest openings.
But, by the side of these descriptions, we find
others not at all consistent with the origin we have
suggested. The soul is said to be of any size, from
a grain of sand up, and of any shape and appear-
ance. It is affirmed also that a man has several souls,
and that each one of them has a different destiny.
There are souls that enter the wombs of women;
these souls may look like diminutive models of a man
or woman, or they may be altogether different. We
are driven to the supposition that the descriptions do
not all refer to one and the same kind of object. Some
of them have obvious reference to persons as they
are seen in dreams and visions, others cannot by any
stretch of imagination be derived from experiences
of that kind ; they seem rather to denote a belief in
a life-potency animating living things. Let us then,
instead of using interchangeably, according to the
custom, the words '* soul " and *' ghost," use them
discriminatingly. Let ghost " or * double *' refer
to the conception which represents the departed as
similar in appearance and habits tg the living,
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 73
" Soul " would then designate the (individualized?)
life-power possessed by every object that, in the eye
of the savage, is animated.
When did the savage derive the idea of a soul, of
a life-potency? From the seeds with which he is
familiar; from partly developed plants and animals?
Yes ; most probably. But there is no reason to think
that his imagination was narrowly limited by these
objects. He had, as a matter of fact, no direct
knowledge of the human germ of life, and was pre-
sumably therefore freely influneced by many ob-
servations which suggested to him something as
to the appearance and properties of that potency.
Thus, there need be no surprise if the soul is de-
scribed as of the size of a grain of sand or much
bigger; or as in the shape of man; or as soft, like
flesh, or hard like bone and certain seeds. Neither
need we wonder if each person is said to possess
several souls, each one perhaps dwelling in a particu-
lar organ; for, in that case, we may suppose that
the savage has individualized the " powers " ex-
pressed in particular mental and moral traits (vig-
or, courage, cleverness) or in physiological func-
tions (breathing, the heart's action, reproduction).
And if this supposition does not do sufficient justice
to the facts, there are others that might. Our pres-
ent knowledge is too imperfect for us to dogmatize
on this point.
When this discrimination between ghost and soul
is made, much that is otherwise absolutely unintel-
ligible in the statements attributed to the savage,
becQiTies readily explicable, ^e understand, for in-
74 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
stance, that when he speaks of a something located
in the liver, without which the person would die, he
means the life-potency, the soul, and not the ghost.
And when he speaks of that which has survived death
as living on an island not so far away but that you
can sometimes at night hear voices wafted over the
sea, he means ghosts and not souls. It seems prob-
able also, that in the instance of so-called duality of
" souls,'' quoted in the preceding chapter, the kra,
which exists before the birth of the man to whom
it belongs, is the soul; and the srahman, that be-
gins its career at death only, is the ghost.
The failure of anthropologists to realize that the
words " ghosts " and " soul," used by them indiscrim-
inately, designate two different conceptions, is due
in great part to language difficulties. Confusion is
also fostered by the fact that, if our understanding
is correct, it is most probable that ghosts also have
souls, in the same sense as earthly bodies have souls.
The kra, existing before the person, is said to con-
tinue after death together with the srahman. This
would be expected if the kra (in our understanding,
the soul of the earthly body) continues as the soul
of the ghost. A third source of confusion is that
the savage himself is, we may well suppose, not able
to always keep separate these two conceptions. It
is to be expected that the surviving ghost would be
at times confused with the germ producing birth.
When we are told that certain savages affirm the
soullessness of women and their annihilation at
death, are we to understand that women are not pro-
produced by life-germs, or that, in their case, at the
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 75
death of the body there is no ghostly continuation?
In the latter event, we should speak not of the soul-
lessness, but of the ghostlessness of women.
If the savage makes but few, if any, reference to
the soul of ghosts, it may be merely because there
is no occasion for his doing so. It is not his habit
to concern himself with things that have no practical
significance for him. He may, however, never have
realized that consistency requires ghosts to have
souls. On the other hand, should he regard the life-
potency as passing at death into the ghost, there
could be no reincarnation into new earthly bodies,
unless ghosts died, or unless the earthly body had
several souls, one of which belonged to the ghost,
and another served the purpose of reincarnation.
In this circle of ideas, we may for the present do
no better than speculate.
III. THE ORIGIN OF THE SOUL AS SET FORTH BY
DURKHEIM IN HIS THEORY OF THE ORIGIN
OF THE IDEA OF THE SOUL-GHOST.
The problem of the origin of the soul conception,
does not strictly speaking belong to our immediate
purpose; it is the origin of the ghost, not of the soul,
that we have to explain. In a preceding book in a
chapter on the origin of the idea of impersonal pow-
ers, I have set forth what may be called the more
distant source of the soul idea. In his Elementary
Forms of the Religious Life, Durkheim offers a valu-
able suggestion regarding the immediate origin of
that conception. But for this distinguished author, as
for other anthropologists, soul and ghost are not two
radically different conceptions arising in different
76 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
ways. On the contrary, the main point of his theory
is that the immortality of the individual person is a
necessary consequence of the nature attributed to
the soul. The main question is, therefore, for him,
that of the origin of the soul-ghost and of its nature.
That problem intimately connects itself in his mind
with the far reaching question of totemism. I can-
not attempt to appreciate here the importance of
the contribution made by Durkheim to the solution
of this great and knotty problem; I shall have to
limit myself to a summary exposition of that part
of his theory which is of direct interest to us in the
present connection. '
The Central Australian does not think that at
birth a new person is created; creation de novo he
does not understand. For him every person coming
into existence is a reincarnation. Each clan con-
sists thus of a constant number of beings ; or if the
membership increases, each individual proceeds
nevertheless from the uncreated, original ancestors
of the clan* In the latter case, new beings bud forth,
as it were, out of the substance of the uncreated an-
cestors, find lodgment in women's bodies, and come
to birth in due course of time.
The close connection existing between the original
ancestors and the totemic principle is an essential
part of Durkheim's theory. They were not men, in
the proper sense of the term; they were partly ani-
mals or plants, and partly men, " made of the same
substance as the totemic principle.'' Thus Durkheim
"Durkheim: Les Formes Elementaires de la Vie 7?e^i-
gieuse; P^rig; Alcan; 1912. Pages 352-375,
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 77
finds the origin of each new born individual in the
totemic power itself, acting through the intermedi-
ary of the ancestors. When the totemic potency ani-
mates a human or animal body, it becomes individ-
ualized; until then, it may be considered as too
vaguely conceived to deserve the epithet personal;
it is not very different from the mana of the Melane
sians.
Durkheim thinks himself justified in regarding
these ideas — they are found throughout Australia,
in America, and probably elsewhere — as expressing
the primary conception of the soul-ghost.
From this understanding of the nature and the
origin of the soul-ghost, Durkheim derives the con-
ception of its survival after the death of the body.
Since it appears to the savage that souls can be made
only out of souls, *' the new born souls can be nothing
else than new forms of already existing souls ; there-
fore, these must continue to exist in order that
others may be later formed. Only by belief in the
immortality of the soul can primitive man explain to
himself a fact which cannot fail to strike his atten-
tion : the perpetuation of the life of his social group.
Individuals die, but the clan survives.*' '°
Many years will no doubt elapse before anything
like unanimity is reached with regard to the merits
of this theory, when regarded as representing the
primitive account of the origin of human individu-
als. But this at least may be said now : after a long
and practically unchallenged sway, animism, consid-
ered as the primitive philosophy of life, is now not
'" Loc. cit, page 384,
78 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
only challenged but finds itself confronted by a for-
midable rival. In several of its aspects, notably in
the relations it would establish with totemism and
with the general conception of impersonal power (a
notion which I think must have preceded that of
personal agents) , the new theory seems more pro-
foundly rooted than the old.
The criticism w^e would pass upon this theory is,
we trust, already understood. The substantial iden-
tity which Durkheim assumes between the life-
potency and the ghost arises from a misunderstand-
ing. The ghost with whom the savage maintains
more or less systematic relations of the kind obtain-
ing between man and man, is something radically
different from the soul which, according to Durk-
heim,— and in this we are ready to follow him — is
responsible for new births. We have already drawn
attention to some of the facts which contradict the
common assumption. Durkheim himself knows these
facts, but he does not ascribe to them the significance
which they bear. When discussing Strehlow's '' ac-
count of the incarnation of souls, he mentions and
accepts the report according to which, among the
Arunta (a tribe of Central Australians), the ghosts,
after the funerary rites have been completed, go to
the island of the dead. From that dwelling place they
make several journeys to the living, in order to assist
their families; These ghosts, however, are not im-
mortal ; they are ultimately destroyed by bolts from
the sky during thunder storms. Nevertheless, these
tribes, again according to Strehlow, explain birth as
Loc cit., page 357 ff.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 79
a reincarnation. It is therefore evident that that
which is reincarnated — supposing the term to be
properly used in this connection — cannot be the
ghosts who go to the island of the dead and are
finally destroyed. That which is reincarnated might,
however, be the soul of the earthly body, when, after
becoming the soul of the ghost, it has finally been
liberated at its death. But this supposition does not
fit in any scheme which, like that of Durkheim,
identifies the soul and the ghost.
The Aruntas' own account of birth does not seem
to fit Durkheim's theory any better. Wherever an
Alcheringa (one of the uncreated ancestors) has dis-
. appeared into the ground, ratajM lurk at the surface,
in holes, or in trees ; and, when chance offers, they
enter women's bodies. They say also that, in other
instances, the ancestor himself operates. At the
proper time, he comes out of his hiding place under
ground, and throws to a passing woman a namatuna
(or namatwinna) which enters her body and as-
sumes human shape. The ghost inhabitants of the
country of the dead are obviously not identical with
these ratapa and namatuna.
Instead of supposing that the ghost-idea is inti-
mately conected with the birth-idea, it seems better
in accord with the known facts to hold that the prob-
lems of birth and of death presented themselves to
the savage as two independent problems. The for-
mer, he solved naturally enough by thinking of the
entrance into women of a seed of life proceeding
from one of the ancestors, and conceived usually as
bearing ruman semblance.
80 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
The problem of the hereafter was, correctly speak-
ing, in my opinion, not a problem at all to the savage.
He may very well have asked himself whence the new
life suddenly felt by the pregnant woman, and have
given the answer suggested to him by vegetation:
a seed from an old stock found its way into a
woman's body. But why should he, after seeing
plants, animals, and men grow, reach maturity, bear
fruit, slowly decay, until little remained of the life
that was in them, and finally become inert in death ;
why should he, possessed of this knowledge, have
asked himself what became of the extinguished life?
Raising the problem of a hereafter implies probably
a much higher development than the one possessed
by primitive man. And yet, it seems as if the sav-
age had given a solution to that problem. As a mat-
ter of fact, if our understanding of the origin of the
ghost-idea is correct, the savage did not answer the
problem of death, he merely, as he thought, per-
ceived the survival after death. It is that illusory
perception of surviving beings which itself, later on,
set the problem of human destiny."
'' When gods are derived from surviving human ghosts,
Durkheim objects that the distinctive characteristic of divini-
ties, namely their sacredness, has not been accounted for
(see loc. cit, pp. 85-91, 123-124, 265-266, 375-379). He re-
minds us that man, as he appears in dreams, is no more than
human; between human ghosts and gods there lies therefore
the chasm made by the latter's possession of sacredness. If,
when living in a human body, the ghost is merely an ordinary,
a secular thing, how could it at death become suddenly an
object of religious regard. To derive gods from ghosts is in
Durkheim's opinion to suppose a creation ex nihilo. It is not
sufficient that the ghost in order to become sacred be a source
of anxiety. Religion, it is true, includes some fear ; but " it
is a fear sui generis, compounded of respect more than of
dread, and in which dominates the very particular emotion
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 81
We are, it seems, in possession of two probable
theories, each accounting for a different set of ob-
servations \ the one derives births from ancestors,
themselves bearers of the wonderful and sacred po-
tency which is the efficient agent of totemism; the
ether, accounts for the belief in the survival after
death of ghosts that partake in most respects of the
nature of the living and are shaped in their sem-
blance.
If the view here defended should be correct, the
inspired in man by majesty. The idea of majesty is essen-
tially a religious idea. . . . Disincarnation cannot invest
human souls (ghosts) with that attribute."
This criticism does not affect the origin of the belief in
human continuation here defended; but that other part of
Tylorian Animism which derives divinities, and therefore
religion, from ghosts. For my own part, I hold it probable
that gods have arisen not only from ancestors, but also from
other sources, as, for instance, from the personification of
natural prenomena and from the assignment of a creator,
or creators, to the universe or any part of it (see A Psycho-
logical Study of Religion, Chapters V and VI).
The sacredness of ghosts — when they are sacred — is un-
doubtedly, as Durkheim claims, a characteristic added to that
possessed by the ordinary human being; and, in order to ac-
count fully for all the elements that go to make up
religious life, one must assuredly not omit sacred-
ness. But neither should one overlook the personal beings
that, when invested with this attribute, constitute divinities.
Feuerbach's Conception of the Origin of Survival after
Death. — This early explanation of the origin of ghost, and
with it of continuation after death, rests upon a very crude
psychology. For Feuerbach, the idea of survival is merely
the idea of the living person, as it remains in the memory of
those who knew him. (Page 273.) "Der Mensch mit seiner
leiblichen Existenz nicht auch seine Existenz im Geiste, in
der Erinnerung, im Gemuthe verliert." "Die Leiche des Men-
schen noch fur dem Menschen selbst halten, zugleich aber
82 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
role played in the course of human development by
exteriorized memory-images, dreams, and visions,
would be stupendous.
auch, weil sie noch das Bild des Lebendigen in der Erinne-
rung haben, dieses von der Leiche unterscheiden, und als ein
selbsstandiges Wesen personificiren." Ludwig Feuerbach:
Gedanken iiher Todt und Unsterblichkeit; Werke: Leipzig;
1847. Vol. Ill, pages 261-273.
CHAPTER III
THE PRIMARY BELIEF IN CONTINUATION
AFTER DEATH AT THE BEGINNING
OF THE HISTORICAL PERIOD
I. THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY IS SAID TO
HAVE APPEARED LATE
After what we have learned concerning the uni-
versal existence of the primary belief among con-
temporary savages, the statement frequently made
that at the beginning of the historical period several
peoples, notably the Hebrews and the Greeks, did
not believe in human immortality, may cause some
surprise. We are told, for instance, that the Israel-
ites' belief in immortality cannot be traced much
further back than the beginning of the Christian
era. The covenant Yahweh made with his people
does not allude to a future life. The nation alone
was an object of his care. The great prophets them-
selves, when they inveigh against sin, care only for
the danger therefrom to the existence of the nation.
Among the Greeks also the belief in immortality
is said to have appeared late. Pythagoras, the
Mysteries, and Plato are named as marking the rise
of the faith. The great contribution of Dionysos
to the religion of Greece was, we are told, the hope
of immortality. We also learn that, " If one had
spoken to a Roman in the fourth century before
Christ, concerning his soul, its sinfulness, and its
83
84 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
need of salvation, there would have been no discus-
sion possible, for the person addressed would not
have understood what it was all about. It is very dif-
ficult for us to put ourselves in such a position of
innocence ; but we can at least realize that there are
certain oriental nations of the present day who do
not understand these concepts, tvho have not the
consciousness of an individual soul and hence can
neither feel its guilt nor desire its salvation. The
origin of this idea of the personal soul is obscured in
great mystery. It was not present at the time of
the Punic Wars. We see only scanty traces of it
in the literature of the Ciceronian age." '
These affirmations may be justified in two ways:
either the continuation idea expressed in the uni-
versal belief in ghosts had, at the beginning of the
historical period, disappeared from among the peo-
ple mentioned; or the immortality which the his-
torians of these nations have in mind is so different
from the primary survival that they do not at all
take that belief into account. We shall have no
difficulty in showing that the popular belief in ghosts,
and at least remnants of a cult addressed to sur-
viving spirits, persisted in the nations mentioned
until the appearance of the modern belief and even
later on. The second hypothesis is therefore the
valid one.
In the Old Testament, traces of polydaemonistic
belief are definite enough to preclude divergence of
' J. B. Carter: The Religious Life of Ancient Rome:
Houghton, Mifflin Company; 1911. Page 72. The italics are
mine.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 85
opinion. The sacred stone at Bethel, the name itself
meaning ''a house of God" (Gen. 28:22) ; the or-
acular tree at Sichem (Gen. 12 : 6 ; Deut. 11:3); the
teraphims, which even as late as the 8th century
B. c. were a regular part of the Hebrew household
(Hosea 3:4), constitute incontrovertable evidence
of the survival among the ancient Hebrews of the
primary belief in continuation after death. '' It may
be set down," says Budde, '' as extremely probable
that the Teraphim belong to the extensive domain of
ancestor-worship, or worship of the dead, which, in
many lands and continents, even in the New World,
has formed the oldest verifiable foundation of reli-
gion. Besides the household gods, Israel must have
had cults of this nature which embraced wider cir-
cles, the family, the clan, and the tribe, though only
isolated and unconnected traces of these cults re-
main in the Old Testament. In I Samuel 20 :6, David
speaks of his family's yearly sacrifice in Beth-
lehem. It may be assumed, indeed, that the sacrifice
on that occasion was offered to Yahweh and not to
a deified eponymous hero. But in ancient times the
case was certainly otherwise. We find great stress
laid upon the mention of the burial-places of a whole
line of ancestors and heads of clans. (Gen. 35 ; Gen.
1; Joshua 24; Judges 2.) Of the so-called 'minor
judges ' we learn scarcely anything more than their
places of burial (Judges 10:2, 5; 12:10, 12, 15).
We may be sure that religious rites were performed
at these graves in ancient times." ' In Deut. 25: 14,
'Karl Budde: Religion of Israel to the Exile: Putnam's
Sons; 1899. Pages 64, 65.
86 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
we read, " I have not eaten thereof in my mourning,
neither have I put away thereof, being unclean, nor
given thereof for the dead,'*
Beer has shown that the old Jewish mourning
customs originated with the desire for protection
from the liberated spirit of the deceased. " The
loud cries uttered by the mourners frighten away
the spirits. The dress, the covering of the head
with ashes, the shaving of the hair, the disfigurement
and mutilation of the body aim at making the
mourners unrecognizable. . . . The wrapping of the
head or beard prevents the spirit from entering in
them, in the manner of infection bacilli, through
the nose or the mouth. Hence the custom still pre-
valent to-day of the mourning veil.'* '
The evidence is just as clear in the case of the
Greeks as of the Jews. The Homeric conception of
man is of a dual personality composed of a visible,
earthly being and of its shadow or copy, which man-
ifests its presence in dreams and continues to live
in Hades after the severance of death. This
" double " takes no part in the life of the earthly
being; its domain is the dream world. For Homer,
dreams are never empty imaginations. But the per-
sonages of the Iliad and Odyssey do not offer any
cult to the dead, who are quite inaccessible to them.
In an earlier age, however, the Greeks worshiped the
departed. The books of Homer themselves contain
remnants of this older faith.* More substantial evi-
* Georg Beer: Der Biblische Hades. Theol. Abhand. —
Fine Festgabe fii^ H. J. Holtzmann; 1902. Pages 16, 17.
* Rohde has indicated in Psyche, vol. I. pages 14-32, the
most interesting of these remnants.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 87
dence is now at hand in the form of recently dis-
covered sepultures with remains of burnt sacrifices
offered in behalf of the dead on the spot where the
body was interred. In the graves were placed pro-
visions, gold, and ornaments, in the belief that the
dead would be able to make use of them.
Jane Harrison has conclusively demonstrated
that while the religion of the Olympic gods was in
process of formation, and even much later, the
Greeks practiced rites clearly indicative of the be-
lief in human ghosts. She finds that important
festivals, nominally celebrated in honor of various
Olympians (the Diasia, the Thargelia, the Anthes-
teria) were in reality chiefly ** rites of a gloomy un-
derworld character, connected mainly with purifi-
cation and the worship of ghosts." ' The Anthes-
teria, for instance, celebrated nominally in honor
of Dionysos, " was a festival of ghosts " aiming at
riddance from them. There is no doubt that the
Keres with which the festival is mainly concerned
were ghosts, and that in the 5th century, B. c, they
were thought of as little winged sprites. Countless
vase paintings show them fluttering about graves.
One vase, reproduced in Miss Harrison's work, pic-
tures Hermes Psychopompos with the magic staff
in his hand evoking the winged Keres that are seen
flying upward out of a grave-jar.' The outcome of
her investigation is that " the Greeks of the classi-
cal period recognized two different classes of rites,
* Jane Harrison: Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Re-
ligion; 1st ed. ; page 11.
'Ibid.: pages 43, 44, 76, 165-167.
88 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
one of the nature of * service ' addressed to the
Olympians, the other of the nature of ' riddance '
or ' aversion * addressed to an order of beings
wholly alien."
The idea of manes, essential to the religion of the
old Romans, is a " vague conception of shades of
the dead dwelling below the earth." ' If one is to
believe Lucretius, and there seems to be no reason
why he should not be credited in this particular, the
Romans were haunted by a dread of the judgment to
come. Andrew Lang is of the opinion that De
Rentm Natura was written against religion in order
to free men's minds from the dread of future pun-
ishment and generally from the interference of
gods; he refers to descriptions by Pausanias and
others of Roman wall-paintings picturing the tor-
ments endured by the wicked.'
The presence at the beginning of the historical
period of practices indicative of a belief in survival,
in the very people among whom the idea of immor-
tality is said to have appeared late is no longer
a moot point. It is equally clear that at the opening
of the historical period the belief in ghosts and the
cults addressed to them were losing favor in all the
nations bordering the eastern end of the Mediter-
ranean. The leaders of the time called the old belief
^ W. Ward Fowler : The Religious Experience of the Roman
People: Macmillan and Company; 1911. Page 386.
Andrew Lang: Letters on lAterature: London; 1892.
Page 91.
Transmigration through the impregnation of women by
spirits was apparently credited by the Romans of Virgil's
time.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 89
a superstition. In Palestine, in Greece, and in
Rome, the cults addressed to ghosts were deprecated
as evil. In Israel, the religion of Yahweh was the
determined enemy of the cult of the dead in all its
forms. Long before Jesus appeared, the stage of
exorcism and divination was past ; " Neither magic
nor sorcery have any longer any standing in the
official religion of Israel. . . . The spirits of the
dead, too, have lost their power; exorcism of the
dead and inquiry of the dead, as well as all the
mourning customs which remind one of the old cultus
and sacrifices to the dead, are forbidden, as opposed
to the spirit of the Israelitish religion. Finally,
Sheol had no significance in the religion of the pro-
phets." " '' That which was in the sixth and even
in the fifth century before the Christian era," ac-
cording to Jane Harrison, ** The real religion of the
main bulk of the [Hellenic] people, a religion not
of cheerful tendance but of fear and deprecation,"
was the same that Plutarch centuries later, and with
him most of his great contemporaries, regarded as
superstition. Among the Romans, ghosts had so
far lost individuality as to be regarded by modern
historians as impersonal forces. The cult had be-
come to an amazing degree a matter of mere con-
ventional behavior."' Thus a period of greatly
decreased influence, among the people, of the prim-
ary belief in immortality and of definite antagonism
to it by the leaders preceded the establishment of
the new belief.
'Karl Marti: The Religion of the Old Testament: Put-
nam's Sons; 1907. Page 180.
'"W. Ward Fowler: Loc. cit; pages 386-388.
90 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
II THE CHIEF CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PRI-
MARY BELIEF AT THE BEGINNING OF THE
HISTORICAL PERIOD, IN THE COUNTRIES
BORDERING THE EASTERN END OF THE
MEDITERRANEAN SEA.
A good and sufficient reason for disregarding the
primary belief, when tracing the origin of the mod-
ern belief in immortality, is the essential disparity
of the two. We have already seen what are the chief
characteristics of the other life among present day
savages; before turning to the modern conception,
we must ascertain what the primary belief became
among the ancient populations with whom the mod-
ern conception originated, i. e., the peoples to whom
we owe our civilization, the Egyptians, Assyrians,
Babylonians, Hebrews, and Greeks.
The after life of the savage was not altogether a
wretched existence; ghosts were no less vigorous
and effective than the living, and many tribes enter-
tained the idea of a paradise for all or, at least, for
some souls. During the centuries immediately pre-
ceding the Christian era, that cheering belief is not
to be found among the peoples just mentioned.
There is no relieving touch to the somber colors with
which they paint the fate of ghosts; and , as one
approaches the Christian era, a hopeless desire to
escape from that fate is more and more frequently
observed.
The Egyptian religion is often called "the re-
ligion of eternal life " ; nowhere else did the idea of
continuation after death play so important a role.
The oldest historical documents we possess, the in-
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 91
scriptions in the passages and chambers of the great
pyramids, called the Pyramid texts, belong to an
already complex civilization although they date back
to about 3400 B. c, the time of the first dynasties
and of the great pyramids. The glimpses of earlier
belief given in these texts suffice, however, to indicate
the presence of a religion of the underworld accord-
ing to which the dead continue an unhappy exist-
ence under the earth. ** The prehistoric Osiris
faith," writes Breasted, " involved a forbidding
hereafter which was dreaded." Later on, the reli-
gion of the Sun-god supplanted among the ruling
classes that of the Nether-god. The old religion,
modified in many ways by the new, continued among
the people; but the fate of the dead was not im-
proved. We read that the souls " join the Sun-god
on his journey from the western horizon, and are
left by the god in different parts of the underworld,
where he gives them fields to till on which they must
henceforth live as vassals, always ready to help their
lord against his foes if any should threaten to attack
him on his passage. Theirs was no joyful lot.
With delight they hailed the Sun-god on his appear-
ance; but at the end of an hour he vanished, the
door of his room closed after him, and for the next
twenty-three hours they had to wait in darkness
which was relieved only by the light which came
from fire-breathing serpents, or from the sea of
flame in which the captive foes of the Sun-god were
burning. It is worthy of note that the same fate over-
takes high and low, kings and subjects. Few indeed
^re the mortals who succeed in escaping it, and those
92 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
who dj are not such as have lived good lives on
earth; they are those v^ho have acquired an excep-
tionally large knowledge of magic, and who have
striven also never to show themselves enemies of the
Sun-god. These succeeded in constraining him not
to set them down on his course, but to bear them
along in his train, ever circling round the heavens
in the solar bark." ''
The same melancholy conception of existence after
death is to be noted in exhortations on the enjoy-
ment of life, such as the following inscription on a
stela addressed by a dead wife to her husband: "
" Oh, my comrade, my husband. Cease not to eat
and drink, to be drunken, to enjoy the love of women,
to hold festivals. Follow thy longing by day and
night. Give care no room in thy heart. For the
West Land (a domain of the dead) is a land of sleep
and darkness, a dwelling place wherein those who
are there remain."
In the religion of the God of the Sky, the religion
of the nobles at the time of the composition of the
Pyramid texts, the fate of the individual was
thought to be happy only if the dead himself before
his departure, or some one for him afterwards, were
able to make it so. The Egyptian never wholly dis-
sociated a person from his body, and could not con-
ceive of the continuation of life after death if the
body were not in some way preserved; hence em-
balming customs and the supreme effort, represent-
ed by the great pyramids, to shelter the bodies of the
^* A. Wiedemann: The Realm of the Egyptian Dead: Lon-
don; Nutt; 1902. Pages 25, 26, 27, 28. Concerning the fear
of ghosts in Egypt, see pages 37, 38.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 93
kings. But it was not enough to preserve and shield
the body for all time; it must be kept provided with
food and whatever else the departed might need;
furniture, weapons, statuettes, servants intended for
the performance of their menial functions, books,
and even musical instruments. As the deceased was
thought to be at the mercy of the living, those who
were able, provided inalienable funds for the ever-
lasting provisioning of their tombs.
Even so protected and provided, possible dangers
still threatened. ''Whichever way the royal pil-
grim faced as he looked out across the eastern sea,
he was beset with apprehension of the possible hos-
tility of the gods, and there crowded in upon him a
thousand fancies of danger and opposition which
clouded the fair picture of blessedness beyond
There is an epic touch in the dauntless courage with
which the solitary king, raising himself like some
elemental colossus, . . . wielding his magical power,
makes himself sovereign of the universe and will
stop the very rising of the sun^if he is halted at the
gate of the Sun-god's realm." '"
To embalming and the provisions made for the
material wants of the dead, the Egyptians added
magical incantations and prayers. We read m the
Pyramid texts over and over the affirmation of the
will-to-believe denying death in quasi magical for-
mulae, " King Teti has not died the death, he has^
become a glorious one in the horizon " ; '' Ho! King
1* Breasted: The Development of Religious Thought in
Ancient Egypt. Pages 116, 117.
94 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
Unis! Thou didst not depart dead, thou didst de-
part living " ; " This King Pepi dies not " ; " Have
you said that he v^ould die? He does not; this King
Pepi lives forever." ''
As long as the Egyptian nobles enjoyed in death
the care that was thought effective, their survivors
could look upon death v^ith something like com-
posure. But when the pyramids threatened ruin,
the priests had given up their sacred task of care
takers, and the legacies for their maintenance had
vanished, what hope could remain to those who had
trusted in these external means? These happenings
together with others led, during the Middle King-
dom (2160-1788 B. c), to a much less hopeful view
of the other life on the part of the followers of the
Sky-god. They were reduced to the sorrowful out-
look of the common people.
" Behold the places thereof [of the Pyramids]
Their walls are dismantled,
Their places are no more.
As if they had never been.
" None Cometh from thence
That he may tell us how they fare;
That he may tell us of their fortunes,
That he may content our heart,
Until we too depart
To the place whither they have gone.
Encourage thy heart to forget it,
Making it pleasant for thee to follow thy desire,
While thou livest.
" Celebrate the glad day.
Be not weary therein.
Lo, no man taketh his goods with him.
Yea, none returneth again that is gone." ^*
''Breasted: Loc. cit.; page 91.
'* A song of the Eleventh Dynasty (about 2000 B. c.,)
edited by W. W. Miiller in Liebespoesie. I use the English
translation in Breasted: Loc. cit., page 183.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 95
From the naive belief in continuation after death
of the present day savage to the pessimism of this
song, there stretches a long history. After a period
during which, with admirable boldness, the Egyptian
nobles had presumed to make themselves the equals
of the gods in the other life, they had been forced
back to the disheartening belief of the common peo-
ple. A similar belief ruled in the neighboring coun-
tries.
The Babylonian dead were supposed to dwell in
a great cave underneath the earth, the most common
name of which is Aralu. It '' was pictured as a vast
place, dark and gloomy. . . , surrounded by seven
walls and strongly guarded, it was a place to which
no living person could go and from which no mortal
could ever depart after once entering it." "
" The day of death is a day of sorrow, ' the day
without mercy.' . . . Whenever death is referred to
in the literature, it is described as an unmitigated
evil. What distinguishes the dead from the living
is their inactivity." They " are weak, and, there-
fore, unless others attend to their needs, they suffer
pangs of hunger, or must content themselves with
* dust and clay * as their food." ^' Their inactivity
carries with it a deprivation of all pleasures. But
the dead person, not sufficiently well cared for by his
relatives, could avenge himself by plaguing them.
An instance of how this was done among the He-
brews is provided in the Old Testament's description
''Morris Jastrow: Aspects of Religious Belief and Prac-
tice in Babylonia and Assyria; 1911. Pages 353, 356, 358.
96 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
of Saul's procedure when he sought out a sorceress
and through her summoned the dead Samuel.
For the Babylonians, death made all men equal.
There were no distinctions of rank in the underworld,
kings, priests, conjurers, magicians, and common
people all found themselves together in the dry and
dusty kurnugea (Sumerian word for abode of the
dead.) Everything one touched was dusty. Dust
and earth were the food, the muddy water the drink
of those living the shadowy life of the under-
world.'"
Sheol of the Hebrews, like the underworld of the
Babj^lonians, was a place of dread. The shades
were forgotten of God. Yahweh was the God of the
living, not of the dead.'^ '' Go thy way," says
Ecclesiastes, '' eat thy bread with joy and drink thy
wine with a merry heart ; ... Let thy garments be
always white; and let not thy head lack oil. Live
joyfully with the wife thou lovest all the days of thy
life of vanity : ... for there is no work, nor device,
nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol wither thou
goest." ''
In Greece the land of the dead was also below the
earth, beyond Akaron. The souls went to Hades
bemoaning their lot, for it was wretched. From
that dark country souls never returned, and with
them there was no communication. Neither the
'* Friedrich Delitzsch: Das Land ohne Heimkehr, die Ge-
danken der Babylonier-Assyrer iiber Tod und Jenseits; Stutt-
gart; 1911. Page 16. He thinks, however, that as early as
the 30th century b. c. a distinction in the abode of the shades
made its appearance. Some of the shades live in peace and
comfort m a country provided with water. (Pages 18-22.)
'' Psahn 88: 13. " Ecclesiastics 9: 7-10.
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 97
Egyptians, nor the Babylonians, nor the Hebrews,
nor the Greeks could think of beings deprived of a
vigorous, effective body as enjoying a happy life;
that is why the Egyptians did their utmost to pre-
serve the body, and why the souls were pictured as
feeble, inefficient shades. The Babylonian dead were
supposed to live an ineffective, drowsy, starved
existence ; and the inhabitants of Sheol are described
in the Old Testament as revhaim, that is, feeble and
ineffective creatures. Homer draws a repulsive pic-
ture of the dead hovering in the dark realm of
Akaron, hazily conscious, hollow voiced, weak, and
indifferent. The few fortunate individuals who were
translated to Elysium or elsewhere without passing
through death and lived on happily, had retained
their body.
The ghosts known to the Old Testament writers
" were entirely lacking in the characteristics of per-
sonality," '' and the Roman shades were ''hardly,
if at all, individualized." '° This lack of definite
personality and the accompanying lack of individual
names are hardly matters for surprise; they follow
unavoidably, it seems to me, from the immense num-
ber and the insignificance of the shades. It was im-
possible for the living to think of them otherwise
than collectively. A deceased husband is, of course,
a perfectly definite person to his wife at the begin-
ning of her widowhood; but as time passes, and as
the rites of propitiation are more and more care-
lessly attended to, and a new husband replaces the
Karl Marti: Loc. cit.; page 58.
W. Ward Fowler: Loc. cit.; page 386.
98 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
departed one, the personality of the ghostly first
husband unavoidably fades out. Sooner or later,
he is degraded to the rank of the undifferentiated
shades that haunt the world of the dead — shades
thought of and dealt with not individually, but col-
lectively. Such were the numena, whose varied
powers were collective rather than individual.
The vagueness with which the personality of the
shades were conceived should not, however, be inter-
preted as signifying that they were powers of an
impersonal order. The ghosts, the shades, the
numena with whom the Greeks, the Hebrews, the
Romans maintained relations, were personal powers,
however ill characterized they may have been. This
fact is established by the nature of the relations
maintained with them : the invocations, the offerings,
the sacrifices. Such rites are not addressed to non-
personal powers. Of the numberless ghosts existing
for these peoples, only those who for any reason be-
came centers of special attention on the part of a
group, preserved or reacquired a definite personality
and received a name. Their humble descent from the
crowd of nameless souls was, of course, either never
known or speedily forgotten.
The kind of influence exercised by the belief in
continuation varies with the degree of mental de-
velopment of the believer as well as with the nature
of the belief. In the modern belief the whole em-
phasis is placed upon securing for oneself a happy
life after death. It is otherwise with the savage.
He lives in the present and gives little thought to
his own destiny; he is much more interested in the
THE PRIMARY BELIEF 99
existence of the ghosts themselves, and in their be-
havior toward him, than in his own survival. The
next world exists for him only in its influence upon
the present life : he believes in the survival of others,
and does not think of his own. Among the semi-
civilized, however, the belief leads both to rites for
averting the dreaded ghosts and to a real concern
for one's own future.
For centuries the primary belief, with all the hope-
lessness and horror it took on in the course of its
development, oppressed the millions among whom
European civilization was slowly taking shape.
Why did the primary belief harden into this dis-
tressing and hopeless form? Surely not because all
optimism had departed from human nature. The
impulses out of which paradises are created were not
dead ; this is triumphantly demonstrated by the cre-
ation, a little later on, of the glorious modern con-
ception. The explanation of the temporary triumph
of the dismal belief in impotent and vacuous souls
seems to be found, as I have already intimated, in
the inability of men at that stage of culture to con-
ceive of a person as enjoying a tolerable existence
when deprived of his earthly body.
The persistence of the difficulty offered by the
destruction of the body is sufficiently evidenced by
the fact that its resurrection is affirmed even in the
modern conception of immortality. Not belief in
bodiless spirits, but in spirits inhabiting ** glorified ''
bodies, is the form which faith took under the pres-
sure of the moral demands for immortality.''
^' As recently as 1875, a Dr. Schneider expressed the opin-
ion that burning the body makes life eternal impossible.
100 COD AND IMMORTALITY
I have reported certain conceptions and beliefs
of the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Hebrews, and
the Greeks as if they had arisen independently of
one another. This is certainly not the fact: the
ancient Hebrews' belief in continuation after death,
for instance, owed much to the Babylonians. My
purpose was not to trace the influence of peoples
upon each other, but rather to find the reasons for
those characteristics of the idea of continuation
after death which were common to a group of them.
" Only if the dead are sunk in the grave is there any hope
present for the mourners that they will remain preserved
for life eternal and that we shall again find them. Of this
comfort, however, those who remain behind are robbed if the
body is taken from them and burned." — From an address,
" To Bury, not to Burn,' as quoted by Alfred Bertholet in
Pre-Christian Belief in the Resurrection, Amer. Jr. of Theol.^
vol. XX; 1906; page 19.
All the Christian creeds affirm the resurrection of the body.
CHAPTER IV
THE ORIGIN OF THE MODERN CONCEPTION
OF IMMORTALITY
In the countries bordering the eastern end of the
Mediterranean Sea, general conditions required for
the birth of a new conception of immortality were
realized at the beginning of the historical period.
Earthly existence had come to be felt as too brief
and at best too imperfect to account for the sig-
nificance of man. The consciousness of the insuf-
ficiency of this life to satisfy the cravings of the
heart and the demands of conscience manifests itself
in many ways in early historical records. And,
whether the intellectual leaders were prepared or not
to entertain another than the traditional explana-
tion of dreams and visions, they looked with dis-
favor upon the most obvious of the practical con-
sequences of the belief in ghosts. Under these cir-
cumstances, their influence could not fail to be
placed on the side of any other plausible belief, prac-
tically valuable.
One might establish an interesting parallel, his-
torical as well as psychological, between the appear-
ance of romatic, platonic love and that of the new
immortality. Just as love-poetry could not be ex-
pected until sex relations had developed beyond mere
physiological needs, so the creation of the modern
paradise could not take place before ideals of friend-
ship and of love have been formed. The period of
the birth of love-poetry, and more generally of lyric
101
102 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
poetry, was also that of the appearance of the new
belief in immortality, for these two expressions of
human needs are witnesses to similar spiritual ex-
periences. The raptures and pains which under
certain circumstances vent themselves in lyric song,
under others seek relief in the thought of an eternal
existence in which love, friendship, and justice shall
be forever victorious.
Cicero, who lived during what may be called the
interregnum of the belief in continuation, provides
a precious illustration of the influence of affection
upon the establishment of the new belief. Agnos-
ticism was his usual attitude. In one of his letters
he seems to speak of his own non-existence after
death. Nevertheless, when his beloved and only
daughter, Tulla, died, he thought of her as still
surviving, as a deity or spirit to whom a fanum '
could be erected. In a Consolatio addressed to him-
self he insists upon the spiritual nature of the soul.
** And in the concluding words he hints strongly at
the divinity of the soul which is of the same make as
God Himself, — of the same immaterial nature as
the only Deity of whom we mortals can conceive.
His daughter, therefore, is not only still living in a
spiritual life, but she is in some vague sense divine.
. . . Undoubtedly, Cicero is here under the influ-
ence of the Pythagoreans as well as of his own
emotion." ' Instances of belief in immortality due
' Fanum was the general term for a spot of gn^ound sacred
to a deity.
'' The whole of this passage referring to Cicero is taken
more or less verbatim from W. Ward Fowler: The Religious
Experience of the Roman People; pages 385-389.
THE MODERN BELIEF 103
to a cause similar to the one affecting Cicero are
abundant among us today. Cicero deserves special
mention in this connection only because he lived be-
fore the belief v^^as firmly established.
Some of the psychic forces that were to create the
belief in the fulfillment of human desires after death,
began by giving rise to heralds of the new faith,
namely to belief in translation into an endless exist-
ence without passing through death and in Mes-
sianic prophecy.
I. TRANSLATION TO A LAND OF IMMORTALITY
In the Homeric epics, Menelaus and Ganymede
are translated, the first to Elysium, the second to
Olympus; not, it is true, as a reward for faithful-
ness to the gods, nor because of superior personal
worth, but simply, at least so it appears, because
of a physical relationship to the gods. There is
here no question of a special abode for chosen spirits,
on the order of the Christian heaven. Neither
Menelaus nor Ganymede were shades; they did not
die, they never lost their bodies. The Elysian fields
to which Menelaus was transported, were a land of
perpetual spring at the end of the earth. Gany-
mede's adventure was different in that he was
brought to the abode of the gods themselves in order
to serve them as cup bearer.
For the Babylonians, there seems to have been but
one exception to the rule according to which all
mankind eventually goes to Aralu. Parnapishtim,
perhaps the prototype of Noah, was miraculously
saved from a rainstorm that caused general destruc-
104 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
tion. He was, moreover, transported to a place
vaguely described as ** distant " and situated at the
" confluence of the streams," probably an island in
the vicinity of the Persian Gulf, where he continues
to live in blessedness. His appearance is, however,
unchanged. A certain Gilgamesh, the hero of a
Babylonian epic, seeks Parnapishtim in the belief
that he has the power to cure him. On perceiving
him, Gilgamesh exclaims: —
" I gaze at thee in amazement, Parnapishtim.
Thy appearance is normal. As I am, so art thou.
Thou are completely equipped for the fray.
Tell me how thou didst come to obtain eternal life among
the gods? " »
No reason is adduced for the escape of the Baby-
lonian hero from the dreary world of the inactive
shades ; no religious nor ethical merit belongs to him.
The best that is said of him is that he is a " very
clever one." Whatever may be the reason for his
good fortune and that of Menelaus and Ganymede,
these instances make clear the dislike of the world
of the dead, the presence of a desire for continued
life amid happy circumstances, and the belief that
such a blessed fate was not altogether impossible,
that man was not so far below the gods as to be under
any circumstances unworthy of partaking in their
immortal happiness.
The two Hebrew examples of Enoch* who
** walked with God " and was taken up unto his
' Morris Jastrow: The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria.
Pages 493-494.
*Gen. 5:24.
THE MODERN BELIEF 105
Lord; and of Elijah/ the fearless servant of Yah-
weh, who was carried in a chariot of fire by a whirl-
wind into heaven, reveal the presence among the
Jews of the same desires and ideas and, in addition,
mark the consciousness of the supreme value of
loyalty to the gods. Translation was for these men
the reward of moral worth.
But why were not these worthies allowed to pass
through death and then made immortal and blessed?
If they were translated bodily into a land of im-
mortality, it is probably because to their people the
soul could not be sundered from the earthly body
without suffering a permanent loss; it became a ten-
uous, ineffective ghost.
11. THE MESSIANIC PROPHECIES
This very significant manifestation of some of the
forces to which we owe the modern belief found its
most vigorous and clearest expression among the
Hebrews. Their intense consciousness of national
existence made it impossible for them to conceive of
their nation as coming to an end. Israel could not
be destroyed; its birthright was to rule and endure
to the end of time. When disaster upon disaster
overtook it, when Judah and later Israel were taken
captive, national consciousness, instead of relin-
quishing its claims to national greatness, reaffirmed
them and devised ways by which, in spite of the pres-
ent humiliation, the hopes of the race would, in some
way or other, be realized. The oppressed nation
• II Kings 1-2,
106 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
dreamt the dream of the Day of Yahweh when, the
Lord having manifested his might, Irsael would be
established upon the earth in peace and power.
To this conviction was added later on another,
closely connected with immortality, namely the belief
that on that blessed Day, the righteous who had
descended to Sheol would arise and participate in
the triumph of the nation." The faithful were to
be ressurrected, not in order to live a blessed inde-
pendent existence somewhere else than on this earth,
but in order to be reincorporated in the earthly life
of the nation. We cannot follow here the gradual
formation of this ideal of Isaiah in which the two
distinct ideas of a regenerated nation and of the
resurrection of the righteous had become united.
The second and the third chapters of R. H. Charles'
work will gratify the readers' curiosity on these
points."
The psychologist notes with interest that the ideas
of the Day of Yahweh and of the resurrection of the
* " Thy dead shall live, my dead bodies shall arise. Awake
and sing ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew
of herbs and the earth shall cast forth the dead." — Isaiah
26: 19.
^ That this conception of an eternal blessed future upon
earth in which the dead participate is truly of Hebraic origin,
and is not merely borrowed from the religion of Zoroaster, is,
in the opinion of Charles, an established fact. He writes,
" But as a matter of fact the Jewish doctrine, as it appears
in its earliest form in Is. 26, is essentially different from the
Mazdean. Thus (1) whereas the former is spiritually con-
ceived as the prerogative of only the righteous in Israel, the
latter is a mechanical and ethically indifferent dogma, in ac-
cordance with which good and bad alike are raised. Thus
whereas the former is specifically the result of right conduct,
the latter has no relation to conduct at all. (2) According to
the former, only a limited number — the faithful in Israel
THE MODERN BELIEF 107
dead to participate in it, owe their origin to the
same class of motives : both spring from a con-
viction of the insufficiency of this life to satisfy fully
the instincts of preservation and completion as en-
larged by moral perception.
Similar causes led the Egyptians to a belief in an
ideal future state like that of the Hebrews, though
less definite and much less firmly established. The
Admonition of an Egyptian Sage' recalls the
prophetic books of the Old Testament in which the
Messianic Kingdom is announced. I cannot dwell
upon this remarkable document, but will reproduce
a passage from Breasted that refers to the closing
part of the tractate where a picture is drawn of
the ideal sovereign, the righteous ruler with ' no evil
in his heart,' who goes about like a ' shepherd
gathering his reduced and thirsty herds. The hope
that the advent of the good king is imminent is un-
mistakable in the final words : ' Where is he to-day .
Doth he sleep perchance? Behold his might is not
seen.' With his last utterance one involuntarily
adds ' as yet.' . . . Whether the coming of this ruler
is definitely predicted or not, the vision of his char-
acter and his work is here unmistakably lifted up
Zri^T^Ii^d; according to the latter, all men of all nationali-
ses and of a 1 times. (3) According to the former, the res-
urrection ^as at the beginning of the Messianic kingdom; ac-
cording to the latter, at its consummation m connection with
the final judgment/'- A CriUcal ^^^^^ry oj the Bocipne o
aF^Zrel^in Israel inMdai^^rn, andmChristmmty.
Tendon- Adam and Black; 1899. Pages 134, 135.
^ AlaA H Gardiner: The Admonition of an EgyptranSage;
Leinzis- 1909. I follow Breasted: loc. ciL; pages 203-216,
who Ifcepts the reading of Dr. H. C Lange For a discus-
Tion of that reading see Gardiner's Introduction.
108 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
by the ancient sage— lifted up in the presence of the
living king and those assembled with him, that they
may catch something of its splendor. This is, of
course, Messianic nearly fifteen hundred years before
its appearance among the Hebrews."
III. THE RECOGNITION OF THE INSUFFICIENCY
OF NATIONAL HOPES, THE CONSEQUENT ES-
TABLISHMENT OF INDIVIDUAL RELATIONS
WITH THE GODS, AND THE DAWN OF THE
MODERN BELIEF IN PERSONAL IMMOR-
TALITY
Intellectual and moral growth meant the appear-
ance, side by side with the strong social conscious-
ness characteristic of the earlier stages of social de-
velopment, of a sense of individual worth
and responsibility. The moment came when no
dream of national triumph and greatness could com-
pletely satisfy the moral aspirations of man. This
insufficiency could be illustrated in every population
which has passed from savagery to civilization. Its
earliest expression known to us is found in Egypt,
but it is in Hebrew sacred literature that the richest
material illustrates the spiritual forces at work in the
transformation of the conception of a national into
an individual immortality. I shall therefore confine
myself almost exclusively to that nation.
The author of the book of Job came near solving
the tormenting irrationalities involved in the thought
of a mortal being ending miserably in death, by
positing another life in which the present one would
find its explanation and justification. Job's re-
bellious complaint against the limit set by death
THE MODERN BELIEF 109
rises clear and loud; ' Man that is born of a woman
is of few days and full of trouble. He cometh forth
like a flower, and is cut down. He fleeth also as a
shadow, and continueth not. . . . Thou hast ap-
pointed his bounds that he cannot pass. . . . There
is hope of a tree, if it be cut down that it will sprout
again. . . . Though the root thereof was old in the
earth and the stock thereof die in the ground yet
through the scent of water it will bud and bring
forth boughs like a plant. But man dieth and
wasteth away: Yea, man giveth up the ghost, and
where is he? . . . Man lieth down and riseth not;
till the heavens be no more they shall not awake nor
be raised out of their sleep." ' Then a wish, hardly
a hope, escapes his lips : "Oh, that thou wouldst hide
me in the grave, that thou wouldst keep me secret,
until thy wrath be passed, that thou wouldst appoint
me a set time and remember me. If a man die, shall
he live again? All the days of my appointed time
will I wait till my change come." ""
The nearest Job comes to the glorious idea of an
eternal blessed life with God, is in the conviction—
perhaps only a fleeting persuasion— that after death
he will enjoy for a moment a vision of God who will
then vindicate his mysterious ways. Although an
endless continuance of life in communion with God is
nowhere even hinted at by Job, nevertheless, his pro-
found sense of the claims of justice makes him a
fore-runner of the great Jewish prophets who con-
ceived the resurrection of the faithful and a blessed
existence with God.
^oVTT: 1-12. ^"^ Loc. cit.; 5:13, 14.
110 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
Job seemed to have been ignorant of the existence
of the primary belief in immortality, although we
know it to have been familiar to those about him.
But why should he have referred to it? He could not
have had any use for the traditional belief; Sheol
offered no solution to the problems that tormented
him; it preserved nothing that he wished to pre-
serve; it was an altogether irrelevant tradition.
Fifteen hundred years earlier than the Book of
Job, the Egyptians were already wrestling with an
acutely painful sense of the inadequacy and mystery
of life. A most remarkable dialogue of an unnamed
writer with his own soul has been preserved to us.
The document belongs to the Middle Kingdom (2160-
1788) B. c. Unmerited misfortune upon misfortune
has fallen upon the unhappy man. The burden of
life has become so heavy that he determines to take
his life. But he shrinks from the grave and enters
upon a long dialogue with his soul. The first part
concludes with the philosophy of ** eat, drink, and be
merry for to-morrow we die.'' From this, it pro-
ceeds to demonstrate that life, far from being an op-
portunity for pleasure, is more intolerable than
death. A terrible indictment of society follows.
The writer finds in it only corruption, dishonesty,
injustice, and unfaithfulness. It is not, however, on
this note that the tractate ends. " Earlier in the
struggle with his soul, the sufferer had expressed the
conviction that he should be justified hereafter. He
now returns to this conviction in the fourth poem,
with which the remarkable document closes. It
therefore concludes with a solution likewise found
THE MODERN BELIEF HI
among those discerned by Job— an appeal to justi-
fication hereafter." ''
National misfortune might vivify rather than de-
stroy the conviction of an immortal national destmy ;
but when disaster was clearly irreparable the
thought of a final national triumph would seem sheer
madness. Then, the individual was thrown back
upon himself, and dreams of a glorious earthly Mes-
sianic Kingdom gave way before the hope of a bless-
ed immortality with God in heaven. As a matter ot
fact, the time of the formation of the new belief m
Palestine and in Greece, and of its spread m Rome,
was a time of national disintegration.
There are few events in the religious history ot
Israel so interesting and important as the trans-
formation, at the moment of Israel's greatest dis-
couragement, of the religion of Yahweh - the na-
tional God - into a religion of the individual. As
this change is of fundamental interest to the student
of the origin of the modern belief among the He-
brews, I shall present it at some length.
For many generations and until irreparable dis-
asters fell upon the nation, the greatness and happi-
ness of Israel was sufficient to the worshiper of
Yahweh. His God dealt not with individuals but
with the nation; his covenant was with the nation.
The nation sinned and the nation was punished;
Yahweh visited the virtues and vices of the father
upon his children ; he smote the first born m the
^"^^AT^man: Gesprach eines Lebensmueden 'fnit seiner
Seele Abtedhm^en der Koenigl. Preuss. Akad; Berlin;
1896 I follow the English of Breasted: loc. ciL; pages 191-
197.
112 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
land of Egypt; and because Ahab humbled himself
before him, he would not bring the evil in his days,
but in his son's days/'
The fall of the Northern Kingdom and later of
Judah itself forced a readjustment of this relation,
— a readjustment prepared by Amos and Hosea
and completed by Jeremiah. The most important
outcome of the sore trial to which Jeremiah's faith
was subjected by the misfortune of his country was
the establishment of individual relations between
him and Yahweh. " The fate which Yahweh decrees
for him is complete isolation. They all abandon him,
one after another, — his relatives, the King, the
priests, the prophets, the mass of the people, and
finally, even the nobles who at first stood by him. At
last only his faithful secretary, Baruch, remains,
and even he is separated from him by the walls of
the prison. This isolation is Yahweh's will, and is
rendered more acute by a number of strict injunc-
tions. He shall take no wife, he shall not mourn
with those who mourn, nor rejoice with those
who rejoice (16:1-8). Thus only Yahweh Himself
remains to him for communion and intercourse.
But now we find what we have never met with in any
prophet before this time. Jeremiah \appears in
continual dialogue with Yahweh. He complains, he
contradicts Him, contends with Him, defends him-
self against Him, but is ever worsted by Him. Yet
in the midst of his grief and despair he awakes to the
consciousness that the words of Yahweh are really
the joy and rapture of his heart, because Yahweh's
I Kings 21 : 29.
THE MODERN BELIEF 113
name has been put upon him, that is to say, because
he is Yahweh's possession (15:16). 'Heal me,
Yahweh, that I may be healed ; help me, that I may
be helped, for Thou art my praise' (17: 14). It
may be said that the true religion of Yahweh had
no other refuge in Jerusalem, at the time of its fall,
than the person of Jeremiah. Here we find a man
abandoned by the whole world and in the deepest
depths of misfortune, who has intercourse only with
his God and finds his sufficiency in him." ''
Ezekiel continued the development of Jeremiah's
thought. From an individual relation with God, he
drew the unavoidable conclusion that each individ-
ual is to be rewarded or punished according to his
desert. This doctrine permeates the Psalms and the
book of Proverbs. But, when limited to earthly ex-
istence, the doctrine is obviously false, and Job and
the author of Ecclesiastes are up in arms against
it: " All things come alike to all, there is one event
to the righteous and to the wicked ; to the good and
to the clean and to the unclean; to him that sacri-
ficeth and to him tht sacrificeth not ; as is the good,
so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that
feareth an oath." '* Ezekiel's doctrine could be
made true only by positing another life after death
in which the injustice of this life would be repaired.
The foremost argument of present believers, namely
the impossibility of death being the end of man if
he owes his existence and ideals to a benevolent Cre-
'* Karl Budde: The Religion of Israel to the Exile; pages
196-197.
'* Eccl. 9:2; comp. 7: 15.
114 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
ator, was implicitly present in the consciousness of
Job, of Jeremiah, and of Ezekiel.
It does not seem that the relation of the great
gods of Egypt was at any time during the historical
period exclusively with the nation; the Egyptians
anticipated the Hebrews in the establishment of per-
sonal ethical relations with a Heavenly Father. The
kings communicated with Re as individuals, more
than as representatives of the nation. In any case
personal piety, with all the characteristics of
communion with God known to the writers of the
Palms, existed during the Restoration Dy-
nasty (663-525 B. c). It was no longer the formal
affirmation of righteousness made in the Book of the
Dead, but a humble supplication for mercy and help
from the great Shepherd of men. " Thou sole and
only one, thou Herakhte who hath none other like
him, protector of millions, savior of hundred thou-
sands, who shieldeth him that calleth upon him, thou
lord of Heliopolis ; punish me not for my many sins.
I am one ignorant of his own body, I am a man with-
out understanding. All day I follow after my own
dictates as the ox after his fodder.'' ** Come to me,
0 Re-Herakhte, that thou mayest guide me ; for thou
art he that doeth, and none doeth without thee.
Come to me, Atum, thou art the august god. My
heart goes out to Heliopolis." Amon is often repre-
sented as a herdsman leading his flock to pasture.
In some hymns in which the worshiper breaks out
in expressions of love and yearning for communion
with his god, personal experience reaches the thresh-
old of love mysticism : ** 0 Amon-Re, I love thee
THE MODERN BELIEF 115
and I have filled my heart with thee. . . . Thou wilt
rescue me out of the mouth of men in the day when
they speak lies; for the Lord of Truth, he liveth in
truth. I will not follow the anxiety in my heart,
for that which Amon hath said flourisheth." ''
The development of a sense of individual moral
obligation towards the gods can also be traced, at
the beginning of the Christian era, in the history 'of
the Greeks and of the Romans. " Man is an individ-
ual and as such has certain obligations and respon-
sibilities toward the gods," writes J. B. Carter in his
Religious Life of Ancient Rome. " These obliga-
tions are no longer primarily social; they are dis-
tinctly personal, and man is conscious that he has
not fulfilled them. To add to the seriousness of
the situation, not only is human life very short and
uncertain but the world itself is coming to an
end." ''
The breaking down of the national hope and pride,
the appearance of the individualistic spirit and of
personal relations with the gods, taken in connection
with the realization of the spiritual greatness of
man— a greatness which is only the more clearly
implied in the moral disgust so characteristic of the
Romans of the period to which I have referred—
constituted a situation altogether favorable to the
appearance of a belief in a future life conceived of
as a fulfillment of man's most precious ideals.
^^J H Breasted: Development of Religious Thought in
Ancient Egypt: New York; Scribner; 1912. Pages 354, 355.
'' J. B. Carter: The Religious Life of Ancient Rome; page
74.
Il6 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
IV. GREEK SOURCES OF IMMORTALITY. ECSTASY
The origin of the modern belief is often referred to
the Greek mysteries and to Plato. Socrates had
nothing to teach on this subject. He contemplated
with apparent equanimity two possibilities : complete
unconsciousness, or continuation in a world very
much like the Homeric underworld. Plato, on the
other hand, taught a lofty doctrine. Souls were
self-existent, incorporeal, simple, and eternal spirits.
They were uncreated, preexistent to the body, but
from the first destined to animate bodies; which,
however, were not necessary to them, and might de-
base them. At death, if the soul had lived a noble
life of successful striving against lust and other pas-
sions generated by the body, it underwent a period
of purgation in an incorporeal existence, and later
entered the glorious world of pure spirits. If, on the
contrary, it had suffered the corrupting influence of
the body, it was doomed to animate other bodies, low
or high, according to the value and dignity of its
preceding existence. Reincarnations followed each
other until the soul had triumphed over the impedi-
ments and temptations which come to it from its
association with the body.
This noble conception was in no way established
by Plato on a basis of facts, nor was it logically de-
duced from evident propositions. It bears all the
marks of a creation of desire. The arguments ad-
duced in its support in the Phaedrus are those of a
moralist and poet. What Plato wanted was a doc-
trine that satisfied man*s highest aspirations. As a
THE MODERN BELIEF 117
matter of fact, this doctrine fitted very ill with an-
other doctrine of this philosopher, the well known
doctrine of ideas ; but he valued more highly a scheme
of things satisfying to the heart and to the will, than
one logically consistent. A desire to enlarge and
beautify human nature was the most potent inspira-
tion of his philosophical thinking. Hence the spell
exercised by Platonic immortality ; it draws man on-
ward towards realms he would fain inhabit.
Despite important differences, the Platonic doc-
trine of the soul includes what is essential to the
Christian doctrine, namely unending continuation in
a purified and glorified condition. Preexistence and
transmigration, included in the Greek conception and
excluded from the Christian, are from our point of
view secondary differentiations.''
But the Platonic doctrine did not really originate
with the Greek philosopher. He tells us himself that
he got it from the Orphic priests. The immortality
of the soul and its gradual purification in successive
incarnations in bodies of men or animals, until
it has freed itself completely from the limitations of
matter, was Orphic teaching. We must then look
back from Plato to this Orphic cult. It was ad-
dressed to Dionysos by a sect that had evolved a
definite system of religio-philosophic belief, the chief
article of which was the double composition of man ;
" The widest divergence between these doctrines appears
when Plato describes the disembodied soul as " pure reason."
If pure rationality were intended to involve the loss of per-
sonality, Platonic immortality could not be assimilated to the
Christian conception; for, without the preservation of per-
sonality, immortality in the Christian sense does not exist.
118 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
one part mortal, coming from the Titans, the other
divine. Man's task was to rid himself of the titanic
element, which corresponded to the body, in order to
return pure to God. The deliverance of the soul
could not be achieved suddenly, nor without the help-
ing mediation of Orpheus, who, let it be noted, de-
manded, as condition of salvation from rebirth, a
pure life.
But if we know that the belief in immortality con-
stituted the essential tenet of the Orphic cult, we
do not know how it came to be there. There are
undeniable Pythagorean elements in the cult, and
it is not impossible that its main tenets should have
come from the far east where transmigration was a
widespread belief long before it appeared in Greece.
However that may be, the cult of Dionysos intro-
duced an element unknown to any other Grecian
cult. I allude to the frenzy that possessed its de-
votees. " The celebration took place,'* says Rohde,
" in the dead of night on the mountain tops by the
flickering light of torches. Noisy music resounded ;
the pealing tones of cymbals, the hollow thunder of
great timbrels mingled with the frenzy-summoning
harmony of the deep voiced flutes. Stirred by this
wild music, the crowd of worshipers danced and
shouted in exultation. We have no mention of
songs ; for these, the vigorous dancing left no breath.
The dance was not the rhythmic dance with which
perhaps the Greeks of Homer's age accompanied
their peans, but a frenzied, whirling, plunging sort
of round dance in which the crowd of inspired de-
votees rushed forward over the hill slopes. For the
THE MODERN BELIEF 119
most part it was women, oddly clad, who whirled
about in these dances to the point of exhaustion.
They wore hassaren, long flowing garments, appar-
ently made of fox-skins ; over these they wore deer
skins with the horns sometimes remaining on the
head. . . . Thus do they rave until they have
reached the utmost excitement. In this ' holy mad-
ness' they rush upon the animals chosen for the
sacrifice, and seize and rend them, and tear off with
their teeth the bloody flesh, which they devour
raw." '' In the ecstasy of their excitement, the
worshipers thought themselves divine or at least
possessed by the god. ''
If the practices I have described were new in
Greek religion at the time of the introduction of the
worship of Dionysos, ecstatic intoxication had long
been an essential part of old Indie worship. In the
cult of Soma, the priests, if not the people, became
intoxicated from drinking a preparation of the moon-
plant and thought themselves possessed of divine
power. Practices aiming at a similar result exist
among present day savages. " In nearly every sav-
age tribe we find a knowledge of narcotic plants
'' Erwin Rohde: Psyche; Seelencult iind Unsterblichkeits-
glaube; Tubingen; 1907; 4th Ed.; Vol. II. pages 9, 10.
'* The relation that existed in the Greek mind between ec-
stasy and the divine is well known. Plato wrote in the
Phsedrus, " There is a possession and a madness inspired by
the Muses, which seizes upon a tender and a virgin soul, and,
stirring it up to rapturous frenzy, adorns in ode and other
verse the countless deeds of elder time for the instruction of
after ages. But whosoever without the madness of the Muses
comes to knock at the doors of poesy, from the conceit that
haply by force of art he will become an efficient poet, de-
parts with blasted hopes, and his poetry, the poetry of sense,
fades into obscurity before the poetry of madness."
120 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
which were employed to induce strange and vivid
hallucinations or dreams. . . . The Negroes of the
Niger had their ' fetish water,' the Greek Indians of
Florida their ' black drink/ for this purpose. In
many parts of the United States the natives smoked
stramonium, the Mexican tribes swallowed the pey-
otl and the snake-plant, the tribes of California and
the Samoyeds of Siberia had found a poisonous toad-
stool; all to bring about communication with the
Divine and to induce ecstatic visions/' '" The In-
dians of New Mexico who are " unacquainted with
intoxicating liquors . . . find drunkenness in the
fumes of a certain herb smoked through a stone
tube and used chiefly during their religious festi-
vals/' ''
One may venture the generalization that every-
where, at every level of development, states of intoxi-
cation are regarded as religious states par excel-
lence." Why this extraordinary association of ec-
stasy with the divine? The ready answer is that
ecstasy, whether it be produced by physical or by
psychical means, inspires a conviction of superhu-
man, limitless power; that it brings visions and,
with them, belief in the power of performing won-
drous deeds: healing, destroying enemies, forecast-
ing the future, etc. That such is the belief of those
'" David Brinton:r/ie Religion of Primitive Peoples; page
67.
'' H. H. BancYoit'.Native Races; Vol. I, pages 566, 567.
" In a book on religious mysticism now in preparation will
be included an essay on ecstasy and intoxication in religion.
I shall therefore leave undeveloped several points which I
should otherwise discuss here.
THE MODERN BELIEF 121
who indulge in the religious practices referred to, is
well established.
In so far as the cult of Dionysos is regarded as
transforming the worshiper into a divinity merely
during ecstasy, it does not offer anything unusual.
But when one attributes to these Orphic rites the
origin of belief in immortality, one derives from
them more than we know to have come from like ex-
periences among savage populations. Thus, if the
Mexican Indians thought themselves divine while un-
der the influence of their sacred plant, they did not
imagine that thereby the boon of passing after death
to the dwelling of the gods was conferred upon them.
It may seem to us that once divine, must necessarily
mean always divine. But when we keep in mind that
the phenomena incident to intoxication were the
mark of divinity, we realize that with their disap-
pearance the worshiper must have thought himself
human again. The idea of temporary possession by
the God fitted the experience.
There is, however, no insuperable difficulty in ad-
mitting that a proof of man's final redemption should
have been seen in the transformation taking place in
the worshiper during possession by the God, pro-
vided a sufficiently strong and clear desire be present
for a blessed immortality. In populations that had
not reached a sufficient mental and moral develop-
ment to possess this desire, the intoxication-experi-
ence remained without significance regarding life
after death. The ethical conditions of salvation im-
posed in the Orphic mysteries make clear that Greek
consciousness had already reached a high degree of
122 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
moral sensitiveness; and we know that at the time
in question the realization of the insufficiency of this
life prompted men in Greece, as it did in Egypt and
in Palestine, toward belief in the fulfillment of hu-
man personality after death.
In any case, and whether or not a belief in a
blessed immortality originated independently in
Greece out of ecstatic experiences and a realization
of the inadequacy of this life, or whether it was im-
ported from India through Pythagorean teaching,
the ecstatic experience is a factor essentially differ-
ent from the ethical forces we saw at work in the
consciousness of the Hebrew seers. It is character-
ized by a consciousness of absence of impediments to
the realization of desire, of limitless power, of infini-
tude,— this, rather than intense emotion, is the most
impressive aspect of ecstasy, as well as the funda-
mental fact in religious mystical experiences of every
sort.
Wherever it appeared ecstasy was a powerful ally,
if not the cause, of the the will-to-believe in a blessed
immortality; but it may be said without hesitation
that it was not a necessary factor. Even in its
absence, the modern conception of immortality would
have taken shape in men's minds. If any proof of
this was wanted, the Hebrews would provide it.
According to Rohde, the fundamental incompati-
bility between the old belief in Hades and the new
belief in immortality consists in the affirmation of
*' immortality " made by the latter. This seems to
me an error that mars a work admirable in many
ways. If the soul is immortal, says Rohde, then it is
THE MODERN BELIEF 123
in its essential property identical with the gods; it
belongs to their realm. Who, in Greece, says eter-
nal, says divine; these terms are interchangeable.
That is the true reason why in the religion of the
Greek people the divine plan separated for all time,
in space as in essence, the world of gods and the
world of men : the gods, and the gods alone are im-
mortal." For this reason, in Rohde's opinion,
Greek religion could neither grow into the new belief
nor accept it if presented to it, unless a new exper-
ience, a revelation, overcame the conviction funda-
mental to the old religion. The ecstasy of Dionysiac
worship proved to be the necessary revelation.
To regard immortality as the particular boon se-
cured by the new belief in survival, as Rohde does,
is to miss the mark. We have seen in an earlier
chapter that in the old belief the shades lived on an
existence usually of indefinite duration, and also that
the idea of finitude was not repellent to the savages.
They were not disturbed when the idea occurred to
them that their ghostly selves were not immortal.
According to their stories, some ghosts died, and
others continued endlessly. Immortality interested
them little : the important question was the behavior
towards themselves of the ghost that survived.
At a higher stage of development, the situation
was still the same with respect to immortality. The
Babylonians did not bemoan the mortality of the
shades, but their miserable existence. So did the
Hebrews. It is the descent to Aralu and to Hades,
not the possible destruction of the shades, that
Rohde: Loc cit; Vol II; pages 1-37.
124 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
afflicted these populations. In the religion of the
Nether God, the Egyptian found himself in a simi-
lar situation. Nowhere was the essential mortality
of the soul credited, and everywhere its unlimited
continuation was admitted either for all men, or
at least for special classes of men.
The desire that arose at a certain moment and
grew in intensity in every one of the nations we
have considered, was not for immortality as such
hilt for a future life which would fulfill affective and
ethical cravings. Nothing short of a " divine " exis-
tence could do that. With the exception of Plato and
a few other metaphysicians, men would have held
the promise, of an undeterminate existence — a hun-
dred or a thousand years — in the glorious company
of the gods, equal to the " immortality " they are said
to have believed in. Did not Job find profound con-
solation in the hope of meeting God face to face for
a single moment? The metaphysicians themselves,
I surmise, would have sung the future millennium
with all the superlatives at their command, and, for
the rest, would have taken pride in the generosity of
the prospective but distant surrender of their fully
realized personality. Who could be so insatiable as
to complain of sudden and painless annihilation at
the end of 1000 years of heaven? In any case, ab-
solute immortality is not to be talked of when one
is concerned with religious life. It belongs to meta-
physical speculation.
I do not mean to deny by the foregoing remarks
that Plato and other protagonists of the new belief
thought of a never ending existence, but merely that
THE MODERN BELIEF 125
that was not the essential gain secured by the ex-
change of the old for the new belief.
V. THE ABSENCE OF CONTINUITY BETWEEN THE
PRIMARY AND THE MODERN BELIEF IN IM-
MORTALITY
When surveying the historical development of the
beliefs in immortality, one cannot but wonder at the
absence of continuity between the primary and the
modern belief. Although one finds among savage
populations rudiments of the idea of a heavenly para-
dise and of social and moral retribution in a life
after death, nevertheless, when, during the centuries
immediately preceding the Christian era, the mod-
ern belief made its appearance among peoples far
above savagery, it presented itself as something new.
Why did the primary notion of continuation as-
sume more and more definitely a repulsive form in-
stead of being gradually transformed into the mod-
ern conception? In the presence of this difficulty,
we must recall that between a belief born, as the
modern belief was, of desire for the realization of
moral ideas, and one forced upon men irrespective
of their wishes by the phenomena I have named,
there is no likeness whatsoever beyond the mere idea
of continuation. The earlier belief appears as an un-
avoidable interpretation, devoid of any moral sig-
nificance, of facts directly perceived ; the other is a
creation of desire. The one came to point ex-
clusively to a wretched and painful existence; the
other contemplated from the first endless contin-
uation in a state of increased or of completed per-
126 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
fection, and it incited the living to ceaseless efforts
in order to make themselves fit for that blessed con-
summation.
If one keeps in mind these different, even diver-
gent characteristics, the failure of the one belief
gradually to pass into the other ceases to astonish.
Progressive development is possible only when the
later bears to the earlier the relation of flower to
seed. No such relation holds between the two con-
ceptions of immortality. The effect upon the pri-
mary belief of the desire for happiness and moral
completion, noticeable among some savages, had no
permanent success because it was antagonistic to
dominant characteristics inherent to that belief.
A cursory view of Egyptian religions might sug-
gest that in that land, if not elsewhere, primary and
modern immortality were genetically related. But
a fuller knowledge seems to compel the rejection of
this opinion. Our earliest information already in-
dicates the presence of two religions, that of the
Nether God and that of the Sun God. In the first,
the belief in survival bears all the marks of primary
continuation. In the second, immortality is akin to
the modern belief both in origin and character; it
springs from desire, and it promises happiness. It
differs from the modern belief in the inconspicuous-
ness of the moral element and in the presence of a
requirement unknown to the modern belief: the
earthly body must be somehow kept together and
tended, otherwise life will be extinguished or re-
duced to a miserable existence. I have had occasion
to indicate how, with the recognition of moral values,
THE MODERN BELIEF 127
the conditions of admission to the sky were moral-
ized, and the future life was looked upon as realizing
a state of moral perfection as well as of physical
well being.
The two Egyptian conceptions of continuation
after death were thus parts of two different and an-
tagonistic religions; one, identical to primary im-
mortality, belongs to the populace; the other, in
essential features similar to the modern belief, be-
longs to the nobles.
But if the two conceptions of continuation may
not be regarded as possessing a common source, they
existed side by side for many centuries. Even to-
day, there are Christians who believe in ghosts. It
is not usually recognized how incongruous the ghost
belief is with the idea of the future life officially ac-
knowledged by the church. According to Christian
teaching, immediately after death or after sojourn
in purgatory, the souls go to heaven where they en-
joy a blessed communion with Christ, or to hell
where they suffer dread torments. They are in no
case supposed to remain on earth or to return to it
and roam about human habitations. Roaming ghosts
are of another lineage than Christian spirits ; they
are survivals of the primary conception of continua-
tion.
The popular belief in haunted places and appari-
tions persists, although in opposition to the modern
belief, because dreams and visions, to which the old
belief was originally due, have still the power to
vivify ancient folk-tales.
128 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
But what of the Christian hell ? Is it not a direct
continuation of the later form of the primary con-
ception? I do not think that it should be so re-
garded, for the essential significance of hell belongs
no more than the essential character of heaven to the
primary belief in continuation. According to the
primary idea, as it existed in the countries we have
considered, the dwelling of the dead is never a place
of punishment — it has no moral significance at all ;
whereas the essential character of hell is that it is a
place of punishment for evil done in this life.
Hell belongs to the new conception as the counter-
part of heaven. The hatred of the bad is a corollary
of the love of the good ; and the infliction of suffer-
ing is a crude vv^ay of expressing hatred of evil and
of protecting oneself and those one loves against
danger. The constitution of the Christian hell, like
that of the old style prison, is quite innocent of any
intention to reform. The motives that created hell
are the same that have built jails; self -protection,
retribution and hatred. Christian consciousness
seeking an adequate expression for its imperfect
sense of retributive justice and its hatred of sin
and sinners, may, however, have remembered the
vague, joyless underworld of the ancients.
The only other noteworthy solution of the prob-
lem of death was developed in or near India. There,
the idea of repeated embodiments of the Karma took
the place of one earthly existence continued in
heaven. I wish a study of the Hindoo conception of
continuation after death and of the ultimate fate
of man might have been included in this volume.
CHAPTER V
THE DEDUCTIVE DEMONSTRATION OF
MODERN IMMORTALITY
I. THE METAPHYSICAL ARGUMENTS.
The primary and the modern beliefs were both at
first naive beliefs, uncritically accepted ; the former
resting upon an apparent direct sensory apprehen-
sion of the fact of survival, the latter upon profound
and intense yearnings for it. But when, in the
course of time, the habit of critical reflection had
been formed, neither dreams and visions, nor crav-
ings could longer be regarded as convincing grounds
of belief. In this situation an effort was made to
legitimize the modern faith in survival by placing
it, above individual desire, upon a universally valid
foundation. This effort, continued for centuries,
produced the so-called " metaphysical proofs " of
immortality.'
* The several classes of factors which produce and main-
tain belief are brought out by the following illustration. I
know a laborer who is tormented by the desire to make
money. Some time ago, he showed me a heavy mass of dark
gray sand which he had extracted from the bottom of an old
well. He thought the sand contained gold, and had spent
much time and money in order to establish the truth of his
belief. A desire for wealth was at the root of this man's
conviction; but the desire alone would not have suggested
the idea that the sand contained gold. It was of great weight
and he had, moreover, observed in it brilliant yellow parti-
cles. Therefore, even though many reasons were urged
against his conviction, he believed that he had found gold.
He did not, of course, rest content at this point. He wanted
a scientific demonstration of the truth of his belief, and ac-
129
130 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
An important fact to bear in mind concerning
these proofs is that they were elaborated at a time
when the conceptions of an immortal blessed future
was generally familiar ; hence, they did not originate
the conception; no more did they usually produce
belief, they merely attempted to justify the exist-
ing belief. The relation of the belief in immortality
to the arguments for it, is similar to that of Chris-
tian beliefs in general to the demonstration of their
truth by the scholastics. The church affirmed re-
vealed truths, and the philosophers set about show-
ing their agreement with reason.
Metaphysical arguments are instances of deductive
reasoning which differs in kind from inductive rea-
soning in that the former derives the proposition to
be established from some more inclusive proposition
regarded as self-evident, or as already proved;
cordingly he had the sand analyzed. When a reliable chem-
ist reported the absence of gold, he placed samples in other
hands. Despite several concordant negative analyses, this
man has not yet altogether given up hope.
Three factors are to be observed in this situation: a com-
pelling desire for gold, the direct observation of certain facts
(weight, color) interpreted as signifying the presence of
gold, and an effort to verify the report of the senses and
thus prove scientifically the realization of the desire.
These three factors need not be present in every belief.
Usually, however, the beliefs of cultivated people are sup-
ported by factors of these three kinds; such, for instance, is
the case of the modern belief in immortality. Failure to
keep in mind these several roots of belief is responsible for
much fruitless discussion. Sensory demonstration leaves us
indifferent unless desire or repulsion is awakened. One of
the practical consequences of the importance of desire in the
matter of belief is that, in order to convince, it is usually
much more efficacious to incite desire than to demonstrate
truth. Every one knows that to convince is easy when the
will to be persuaded is present; while the minutest flaw as-
sumes gigantic proportions in one averse to belief.
THE MODERN BELIEF 131
whereas an inductive demonstration is made by way
of generalization from the observation of a suffi-
cient number of facts. It follows from the nature
of a deductive proof that, however strictly logical it
may be, there remains always the previous question
of the truth or adequacy of the major premise upon
which hangs the whole demonstration.
My task does not involve a study of the validity of
the metaphysical arguments; I am concerned only
with the various influences that make for belief,
whether logically legitimate or not. And since the
metaphysical arguments are, as we shall see, so far
discredited that even the most eager believers in
immortality admit their inadequacy, I might say
nothing more about them. Their influence is limited
not only by their weakness, but also by the ignor-
ance in which most men remain of them, and still
more by the general indifference to metaphysical
arguments. Most men find their way by a long
process of trial and error; they blunder into " pro-
gress " by following lines of least resistance, dis-
covered by chance. Desire for logical consistency
and intellectual clarity is but an occasional itch
easily relieved by a haphazard scratch.
Had the metaphysical arguments never been for-
mulated, the hold of the belief would not, I surmise,
have been materially different ; I shall, nevertheless,
outline the more important of these arguments, add-
ing, when it seems worth while and when it can be
done without entering into too lengthy statements,
the main objections that may be raised against them.
But since this is on my part work of supereroga-
132 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
tion, let no one find fault with me for incompleteness
or lack of thoroughness. Any one with a marked
dislike for the rattling of dry bones had better read
only the section on the Moral Argument, and pass
on to the next chapter ; the others may, as they pro-
ceed with these notes, find it interesting to ascertain
how far their own attitude towards the belief in im-
mortality has been influenced one way or another by
these arguments."
ARGUMENT FROM THE SPIRITUAL NATURE OF ALL
REALITY
I begin with the argument for idealism, although
it does not really demonstrate the immortality of in-
dividual beings, but merely of Mind.
In the main, this argument is familiar ; it gets its
start in the observation that the physical world is
known through sensation and in no other way.
Now, sensation is a mental experience. It would
seem to follow that the so-called physical world, as
far at least as we can know anything about it, is
' " The whole of the prevalent metaphysics of the present
century is one tissue of suborned evidence in favor of reli-
gion . . . involving a misapplication of noble impulses and
speculative capacities. . . . It is time to consider more im-
partially and therefore more deliberately than is usually
done, whether all this straining to prop up beliefs which re-
quire so great an expense of intellectual toil and ingenuity
to keep them standing, yield any sufficient return in human
well being; and whether that end would not be bgtter served
... by the application of the same mental powers to the
strengthening and enlargement of those other sources of
virtue and happiness which stand in no need of the support
or sanction of supernatural beliefs and inducements." —
John Stuart Mill: On the Utility of Religion.,
THE MODERN BELIEF 133
after all of the nature of mind, i. e., that the Uni-
verse is in essence of one substance, that of spirit.
The argument encounters a serious difficulty when
it is affirmed that sensation need not resemble the
physical reality to which it is due, for the cause need
not resemble its effect. The physical world, known
in sensation, need not therefore be of the mental
order; it may be of an altogether different nature to
sensation. But this difficulty may be overcome ; for
it can be proved, the argument affirms, that although
the cause of sensation need not resemble sensation,
the existence of the physical world as a subtance
implies its kinship to the nature of spirit. The
conclusion of the matter is, that " all substance must
possess certain characteristics which are essential
to the nature of spirit.'' Thus the apparent dual-
ism, matter and spirit, is transcended : an idealistic
monism is reached.
But this argument, supposing it to be valid, leads
to the eternal self-existence of Mind, not of each
individual mind. The ablest representatives of the
idealistic philosophy have not claimed more. The
opinion of Hegel, for instance, is stated thus by
Andrew Seth:
" The Hegelian system is as ambiguous on the
question of man's immortality as on that of the per-
sonality of God, and for precisely the same reason
—namely, because the self of which assertions are
made in the theory is not a real but logical self.
Hence, although passages may be quoted which
seem direct assertions of immortality, they are
found, on further examination, to resolve themselves
134 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
into statements about the Absolute Ego, or the unity
of self-consciousness as such. The Ego, it is argued,
is, in a strict sense, timeless or out of time, and
it becomes absurd, therefore, to apply time pre-
dicates to it and to speak of its origin or decease.
As applied to the immortality of the individual self,
however, this argument proves nothing ... it is
the immortality of the Absolute Self which it proves.
In like manner Aristotle maintained the eternity
of Active Reason, and Averroes the immortality of
the intellect identical in all men. Spinoza, too,
spoke of the pars oeterna nostri. In no other sense
does Hegel speak of the immortality of * man as
spirit ' — an immortality or eternity which he is at
pains to designate as a * present quality,' an actual
possession.'
" Death as a finality is the demonstration of the
delusion of belief in the universe as intelligible."
This sentence from Lotze, another great represent-
ative of Absolute Idealism, might be construed into
an unqualified affirmation of the immortality of indi-
vidual souls. That it should not be so construed
appears clearly in the following passage:
" The soul is to be viewed as the substantial and
permanent subject of the phenomena of our inner
life. But that, because the soul is the abiding sub-
stance of these phenomena, it must therefore be en-
dowed with an eternal and imperishable duration,
as the privilege of its nature — the unprejudiced
mind will never be convinced of the certainty of that
* Hegelianism and Personality; 1893. Pages 235-238.
THE MODERN BELIEF 135
inference. . . . We have no warrant for assuming
that what once is must necessarily always be. . . .
Then if the connection of our other views tends so
strongly to make us see in all finite things but cre-
ations of the Eternal, it is impossible that the
destinies of the individual can be other than accord-
ing to the dictates of the whole. That will last
forever which on account of its excellence and its
spirit must be an abiding part of the universe ; what
lacks that preserving worth will perish. We dare
not judge and determine which mental development
wins immortality by the eternal significance whereto
it has raised itself, and to which this is denied. We
must not seek to decide either whether all animal
souls are perishable, or all human souls imperish-
able, but take refuge in the belief that to each being
right will be done." *
ARGUMENT FROM THE SIMPLICITY OF THE SOUL
In following another line of thought, which I shall
not reproduce, one comes to the conclusion that the
soul is one and indivisible. This admitted, its inde-
structibility is said to follow, for only that which
is made up of parts can be decomposed and thus
destroyed. Already Plato had advanced this argu-
ment. It was taken up among others by Berkeley.
After claiming to have shown that the soul is indi-
visible, incorporeal, unextended, he adds: —
" Nothing con be plainer than that the motions,
changes, decays, and dissolutions which we hourly
see befall natural bodies (and is what we mean by
* Microcosmus; Book III, chap. V, pages 389, 390.
136 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
the course of nature) cannot possibly affect an
active, simple, uncompounded substance; such a
being therefore is indissoluble by the force of nature ;
that is to say — the soul of man is naturally im-
mortal." A. C. Frazer, who quotes the above, adds,
" Bishop Butler takes for granted that all assump-
tion of death's being the destruction of living beings
must go upon the supposition that they are com-
pounded and so disruptible." '
The unsoundness of the argument from the sim-
plicity and individuality of the soul was shown by
Kant/ According to him, neither logic nor science
can demonstrate immortality. It is a practical
postulate. Holiness, or perfection, is required of
us by the moral law. Of this perfection we are
incapable at any moment of earthly existence. It
is only possible on the supposition of an endless
duration of the individual being upon whom the
requirement is imposed. Immortality is thus seen
to be inseparably connected with the moral law, i. e.,
it is, in Kantian terms, a postulate of pure practical
reason, not a truth logically demonstrable.'
Despite Kant's disproof, the argument from the
simplicity of the soul still enjoys some vogue. It
reappears today, for instance, in the crude philo-
sophical writings of the distinguished physicist.
Sir Oliver Lodge, who claims permanence " for the
essence, the intrinsic reality, the soul of anjrfching,
and transitoriness for its bodily presentment — 1. e.,
' A. C. Frazer : Selections from Berkeley : Clarendon
Press; 1891. Pages 142, 143.
' Book II, chap. I, of the Transcendental Dialectic.
'' Crit. of Practical Reason; Dialectic; Chap. II, sect. 4,
THE MODERN BELIEF 137
for all such things as special groupings, arrange-
ments, systems, which are liable to break up into
their constituent elements." One might point to
this scientist as a striking instance of how recklessly
metaphysical arguments are made to serve desires.
In the paper from which I have just quoted, we are
told that whatever really "exists in the highest
sense " is immortal. " We have only to ask whether
our personality, our character, our self, is suf-
ficiently individual, sufficiently characteristic, suf-
ficiently developed — in a word, sufficiently real; for
if it is, there can be no doubt of its continuance." '
I might add that individuality, which appears in the
above quotation as a test of immortality, was for
Aristotle, and for the Absolute Idealists after him,
the very mark of transitoriness : —
*' Individuality (the being unum numero in a
species) and immortality are in his view incompat-
ible facts ; the one excludes the other. In assigning
(as he so often does) a final cause or purpose to the
widespread fact of procreation of species by animals
and vegetables, he tells us that every individual liv-
ing organism, having once attained the advantage
of existence, yearns and aspires to prolong this for-
ever, and to become immortal. But this aspiration
cannot be realized. Nature has forbidden it, or is
inadequate to it; no individual can be immortal.
Being precluded from separate immortality, the in-
dividual approaches as near to it as is possible, by
generating a new individual like itself, and thus per-
petuating the species. . . . Nous is immortal; but
• Uihhert Journal, Vol. VI; 1908. Y'^g^? 291-304; 564-565,
138 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
the individual Sokrates considered as noetic or in-
tellectual, can no more be immortal than the same
individual considered as sentient or reminiscent." '
The Stoics held a similar opinion. According to
their teaching, the individual soul does not possess
independent activity, but will be ultimately resolved
into the primary substance, the Divine Being.
ARGUMENTS FROM AN INTELLIGENT NON-MORAL, AND
FROM AN INTELLIGENT AND MORAL FIRST CAUSE
Under this heading we may separate three argu-
ments.
(a) From the necessary presence in God of an
idea, Spinoza, whose Absolute was Non-Moral, de-
duced in the following manner the eternal existence
of individual souls : —
" In God there necessarily exists a conception or
idea which expresses the essence of the human mind.
This conception or idea is therefore necessarily
something which pertains to the essence of the
human mind. But we ascribe to the human mind
no duration which can be limited by time, unless in
so far as it expresses the actual existence of the
body, which is manifested through duration, and
which can be limited by time, that is to say, we can-
not ascribe duration to the mind except while the
body exists.
" But, nevertheless, since this something is that
which is conceived by a certain eternal necessity
Grote's Aristotle; 1883. Page 490.
THE MODERN BELIEF 139
through the essence itself of God, this something
which pertains to the essence of the mind will neces-
sarily be eternal." '"
(b) The Moral Argument. — The existence of a
moral God being assumed, it is argued that the Uni-
verse must have a moral purpose. If the Creator
is at the same time benevolent and righteous, he can-
not have endowed man with a nature from which
proceed needs and ideals unrealizable because utterly
at variance with reality. There must be, therefore,
it is claimed, a way by which the demands of reason,
love, and justice are to be gratified, and this is im-
possible if individual life ends with death. This is
the argument which has gained the widest circula-
tion. Martineau calls it the '' real evidence." ^'
On the other hand, it is urged upon us that whoever
believes in God, must also believe in survival of
death ; for, without survival the Universe could not
be regarded as the expression of a divine, benevolent
purpose.
Andrew Seth formulates the argument thus: —
" For, according to the theory that human self-
consciousness is but like a spark struck out in the
dark to die away presently upon the darkness
wherein it has arisen, the universe consists essen-
tially in the evolution and reabsorption of transi-
tory forms— forms that are filled with knowledge
and shaped by experience, only to be emptied and
'" Prop. 22, pt. 5; 13, pt. 2; corol. prop. 8, pt. 2; 22, pt. 5;
23 pt 5; W. Hale White: Spinoza's Ethics: Oxford Univ.
Press; 4th ed.; 1910. Page 269.
"James Martineau: A Study of Religion. Vol. II, page
367, ^
140 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
broken by death. But it is a mockery to speak as
if the universe had any real or worthy End, if it
is merely the eternal repetition of this Danaid labor.
And an account which contradicts our best-founded
standards of value, and fails to satisfy our deepest
needs, stands condemned as inherently unreasonable
and incredible." '" ^
Compare with the above this passage taken from
F. C. S. Schiller:
" In our present phase of existence the moral life
cannot be lived out to its completion, it is not per-
mitted to display its full fruitage of consequences
for good and for evil. Whenever Might triumphs
over Right ; whenever the evildoers succeed and the
righteous perish; whenever goodness is trampled
under foot and wickedness is exalted to high places ;
nay, whenever the moral development of character
is cut short and rendered vain by death, — we are
brought face to face with facts which constitute an
indictment of cosmic justice, which are inconsistent
with the conception of the world as a moral order.
Unless, therefore, we can vindicate this order by
explaining away the facts that would otherwise
destroy it, we have to abandon the ethical judgment
of the world of our experience as good or bad ; we
have to admit that the ideal of goodness is an il-
lusion of which the scheme of things recks not at
all.
" But if we refuse to do this (and whether we are
not bound to refuse to abandon our ideals at the
^'Andrew Seth: Hegelianism and Personality.
THE MODERN BELIEF 141
first show of opposition will presently be consid-
ered), how shall the ethical harmony be restored if
not by the supposition of a prolongation and per-
fection of the moral life in the future? Only so
can character be made of real significance in the
scheme of things; only so is it something worth pos-
sessing, an investment more permanent and more
decisive of our weal and woe than all the outward
goods men set their hearts upon, rather than a
transitory bubble to whose splendor it matters not
one whit whether it be pure translucence refracting
the radiance of the sunlight, or the iridescent film
that coats decay." ''
The outcome of these considerations is the neces-
sity of immortality if the world is to be conceived
as rational, or as having a worthy end. Short of
this, we are told, the moral life cannot be lived out.
Therefore immortaUty is declared a inoral postu-
late. Assuming for the present the truth of this
last momentous aflfirmation, the question remains
whether man is actually to continue after death, or
whether the ideal of goodness is never to be fulfilled.
The ethical argument, as stated in the preceding
quotations, does not solve, it merely forces the di-
lemma upon us. It is only when, instead of affirm-
ing merely the necessity, for the gratification of
human needs and desires, of the existence of a moral
God or Order and therefore of immortality, one
affirms in addition his existence, that a satisfactory
solution is gained. But these two affirmations are
' ''Humanism, Philosophical Essays: London; 1903. Pages
252-254.
142 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
far from equivalent; the existence of a certain kind
of God may involve necessarily the satisfaction of
man's ideal desires, but the presence of these de-
sires does not necessiate the existence of that God:
desires may be disappointed.
Let it be observed that there is great danger here
of reasoning in a circle.. One may start from the
human moral constitution and its demands, and
affirm that they imply the existence of a moral
Creator. Then one may declare it impossible for
such a God not to fulfill the expectations he has
placed in man. ,
Variations in the form of this argument appear
when it is written from the point of view of evolu-
tionary development and from that of the preserva-
tion of values. In the first case, it is affirmed that
the history of animal forms discloses the intention
on the part of their Designer to produce conscious,
moral beings. How then, admit that he would allow
a purpose so plainly inscribed in animated nature,
to be baffled by death? In the second case, it is
claimed that a moral Creator must have intended
the preservation of moral values. Now, all the high-
est values are bound up with personality; none of
the virtues may be conceived as existing otherwise
than in persons. How, then, could God permit the
stupendous waste which would be involved in the
destruction of personality at death?'*
^* Immortality derived from the idea of permanent values
is frequently held to be not for all men, but for the worthy
only. Man is mortal until a wonderful something is born in
him, and then he becomes immortal, destined to continue
forever the ascent begun on this earth. The difficulties raised
THE MODERN BELIEF 143
Two remarks remain to be made: (1) In the
forms of it which we have examined, the validity of
the moral argument is conditioned by that of the
affirmation upon which it rests, namely, that the
Universe is the expression of an intelligent, pur-
posive, and benevolent Will. (2) Even though this
should be satisfactorily established, the argument
itself would contain a fatal flaw. For, as Lotze
remarked, the divine purpose assumed in the argu-
ment might, at least in the case of some persons,
be fully achieved in this life, and thus make immor-
tality superfluous. ''We dare not," says he
** judge and determine which mental development
wins immortality by the eternal significance whereto
it has raised itself and to which this is denied.*'
Attempts have been made to overcome the weak-
ness inherent in an argument presupposing the ex-
istence of a moral God by resting the proof of
immortality directly upon facts of the moral life
in general or, more specifically upon the " prin-
ciple " of the conservation of moral values, or yet
upon the gradual development of intellectual and
moral consciousness in the animal and human world.
by this notion are stupendous. Whence this germ of immor-
tality? How are we to conceive its nature and how to under-
stand its tremendous etfect upon the individual? Shall we
hold that doctrinal beliefs, or good works, or righteousness
of purpose differentiate those who have won immortality.
If in all the voluminous literature dealing with conditional
imortality, there is no satisfactory answer to the many prob-
lems raised by this hypothesis, ^yho will wonder?
Among the best works supporting, from the Christian point
of view, conditional immortality, I note the following: — Ur.
Van Oosterzee: Christian Dogmatics; Canon Gore: The Epis-
tle to the Romans; W. W. Clarke: Christian Theology; Dr.
E Petavel: The Problem of Immortality.
144 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
The facts of the moral life, it is said, demand the
continuation of life after death just as the facts of
the physical universe demand the presence of an
invisible ether that fills all interstellar space. To
reason in this wise is to desert the deductive for the
inductive method, the metaphysical for the scientific
procedure. Any religious " truth " established in
this manner would possess the kind of reality which
belongs to the hypotheses of science. But the
apologists or religious beliefs who claim for them
the validity belonging to scientific propositions,
do not usually intend to place religious truths
in the precarious position of hypotheses. They
have in mind the kind of validity belonging to scien-
tific lawf^. This is quite another thing. The hy-
pothesis of the ether and the law of the reflection of
rays of light by polished surfaces, do not stand on
the same level of certitude. The latter does not
run the risk of being replaced by another law; it
is final. No proposition can claim this absolute
validity that is not empirically verifiable. This
verification — in the strict sense in which science
demands it — cannot be provided for most religious
truths.^'
The scientist's belief in fixed causal connections,
for instance, can actually be shown to correspond
to reality. Scientific investigation demonstrates,
wherever it penetrates, orderly sequence and quan-
"" I know that I shall be contradicted by many on the
ground of their own " experience." These persons will have
occasion to see below, in the discussion of Professor Bacon's
affirmation concerning immortality, why their " experience "
may be misleading.
THE MODERN BELIEF 145
titative relations. The more searching the investi-
gation, the fuller and the more precise is the demon-
stration. If any one thinks it worth while to remark
that no scientific demonstration of the intelligibility
of the Universe is, or can be complete, since man
will never know the whole of the Universe, the ob-
vious answer is that, given the constitution of the
human mind, the continuous success of science in
establishing definite unchangeable relations is
enough to warrant the assurance that the assumption
which we cherish, because of our need of order, is
legitimate. Not only do we want order, but we find
it wherever we look for it. No corresponding state-
ment may be made concerning the existence of an
alleged moral order and of personal immortality.
We do not find moral order wherever we seek for it,
and we have not been able to verify the belief in
immortality.
Evolutionary science has made clear many things,
but, alas, it has not uncovered the ultimate designs
of Nature; and John Fiske's argument is lame un-
less it be made to turn upon the existence of a per-
sonal God : —
" From the first dawning of life we see all things
working together toward one mighty goal, the evo-
lution of the most exalted spiritual qualities which
characterize Humanity. . . . The more thoroughly
we comprehend that process of evolution by which
things have come to be what they are, the more we
are likely to feel that to deny the everlasting per-
sistence of the spiritual element in Man is to rob
the whole process of its meaning." " The case may
146 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
be fitly summed up in the statement that whereas
in its rude beginnings the psychological life was but
an appendage to the body, in fully developed Hu-
manity the body is but the vehicle for the soul." '*
When we consider not merely what has taken
place on this planet since man's appearance on it,
but also the numberless other worlds at various
stages of frigidity or organic activity, we do not
find it possible to read in the brief span of human
evolution an indication of an irrevocable purpose on
the part of a Power directing the Universe. And,
even if there be rational guidance, may not the form
of consciousness known to man be a transitory stage
'* The Destiny of Man; 1887. Pages 113-116, 65.
I am reminded here of the pathetic queries of a worthy
lady who could not reconcile the Christian God of her cate-
chism with what she saw about her. For twenty-five years
this person succeeded in overcoming the doubts suggested by
her experiences with a wicked world. After each new inner
discussion, she would find again what she calls her " pilgrim's
staff," i. e., her confidence in a Providence. A new and more
perplexing experience than any of the preceding finally broke
her staff, and led her to this na'ive solution of the problem
of the relation of God to the world. " There came into my
mind," she writes, " as clear as day that the contradiction
between an all-good and all-powerful God and that which
happens in the world, is due simply to the fact that God is
absent from the world. He is indeed the Great Creator of
whom the heavens declare the glory. He is indeed the Father
of humanity, a tender Father who loves us. . . . If God were
really in the world, he would not be idle, leaving his children
exposed to all their enemies without and within. He would
not be blind and unjust, making the tower of Shiloh fall on
the passers-by who were no more guilty than others. From
the point of view of our sufferings even, it is most sweet and
consoling to feel that God is an absent Father. This last
hypothesis lifts a heavy weight from my heart, for an absent
father is no less a father." — Th. Flournoy: Observations de
Psychologie Religieuse; Observation IV.; A7'chives de Psy-
chologie de la Suisse Romande; 1903. Vol. II, pages 342-347.
THE MODERN BELIEF 147
to something else, we know not what ; leading some-
where, we know not whither?
But if human intelligence has not been able to
demonstrate a moral purpose in every part of the
Universe, there is no doubt of the presence in man
of a moral trend or will. This is as well authen-
ticated as any scientific fact. Morality, so far as
we know anything about it, has its origin in human
consciousness and grows pain passu with social life.
Can we now with the same assurance with which we
affirm that causal sequence, i. e., intelligibility, be-
longs throughout to the Universe, assert also that
morality is of its essence, co-extensive with it, and
like it everlasting? Evidently not. We can affirm
only that moral tendencies come into existence, and
that ideals gradually actualize themselves in human
society: morality appears as co-extensive with it.
So far and no further does science go ; it can merely
affirm that morality is in process of formation and
contingent upon circumstances no more permanent
than the circumstances which make bodily life pos-
sible. We may all desire that the Universe be in-
formed with benevolence and justice, and some may
even think they cannot live on worthily and con-
tentedly unless it be so; but for that belief science
provides at present no justification.
II. THE ACKNOWLEDGED INSUFFICIENCY OF THE
DEDUCTIVE ARGUMENTS AND THE FALLING
BACK UPON DIRECT "INNER EXPERIENCE"
OF IMMORTALITY
Of the arguments we have reviewed, only the
ethical argument and those drawn from evolution
148 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
and from the conservation of values enjoy some de-
gree of influence to-day, but not one of them, nor
all together, is generally admitted among educated
believers in immortality as an adequate proof. The
contemporary v^orld has grown suspicious of these
arguments, and all that even the believer will claim
is that at most they create a presmnption in favor
of immortality/' *' The hope of immortality '' is
a favorite expression with theologians who are them-
selves believers. The Rev. Washington Gladden
speaks for the leaders of liberal orthodoxy in the
United States when he writes, after setting forth
arguments for immortality, that his belief is "of
course, a glorious hope, a confidence, a strong ex-
pectation; it can be nothing more.'' ''
'^ There are, I know, a few dissident voices among those
who have a right to the consideration of the serious student.
McTaggart, for instance, writes in Some Dogmas of Re-
ligion, page 111, " Yet, I think that reasons for the belief
in immortality may be found of such strength that they
should prevail over all difficulties." It is to be noticed that
this acute thinker holds that the arguments for preexistence
are as strong as those for existence after death. If so, the
prevalence in Christian countries of this last belief and the
almost total absence of the former, offers a striking illus-
tration of the effect of desire upon belief.
' ' From a " Symposium on Immortality " in the Congre-
gationalist, Boston, 1904. See also The Christian Hope; A
Study of the Doctrine of Immortality by Wm. A. Brown,
professor at Union Theological Seminary, New York; Scrib-
ner; 1912.
If, nevertheless, I continue to speak of the " belief " in,
and not of the " hope " of, immortality, it is for the sufficient
reason that in reality belief and hope run into each other:
few beliefs are complete and constant, and few hopes do not
grow at times into assurances. Those who, on surveying the
grounds for the belief in immortality, conclude that they
warrant no more than a hope, are not usually able to main-
tain consistently that critical attitude.
THE MODERN BELIEF 149
Whence this marked change in the attitude of
the Christian world? Indications connect the
change with a weakening of the belief in a moral
Creator and with the diffusion of stricter standards
of scientific demonstration.
An interesting double outcome of the new attitude
towards deductive arguments is that, on the one
hand, men have sought with renewed energy a scien-
tific demonstration of immortality ; and, on the other
hand, have felt compelled to rely more and more
for an assurance of it upon what they call *' inner
experience,'' i. e., an experience they think outside
the pale of science. We shall consider in the next
chapter the scientific search for immortality; at
present, let us address ourselves to the curious effort
made to get rid of science and overcome skepticism
by an appeal to inner experience.
If metaphysical arguments can no longer be re-
lied upon, where shall man find the assurance he
needs? "In his own heart and conscience," is the
reply. The reader will observe that this answer
reflects the Ritschlian attitude. When it was at
last clearly realized that science was an enemy to
certain Christian dogmas, and that philosophy could
not be relied upon to defend them, Ritschl embraced
the only remaining possibility : he claimed a divorce
both from science and from metaphysics and
affirmed that theology was to be erected exclusively
upon facts of immediate inner experience. "We
are," say the Ritschlians, "to take our stand where
Jesus took his stand, not upon logic, but upon the
150 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
experience of the heart in its relation to God/' ^^
I have pointed out that this strategic move, instead
of delivering theology from science, implies a sur-
render into the hands of psychology. -^
The typical quotations which follow will serve to
show both that metaphysics and scientific arguments
are held to be insufficient, and that theologians seek
to make themselves independent from scientific crit-
icism in order to find a supposedly unshakable
ground of belief in inner experience. I give the
views not of professional philosophers, but of lead-
ers and teachers among Christian believers, for it
is with them that we are concerned.
" I find, as time goes on,'* writes the Rev. Theo-
dore Munger, "that the reasons for belief in im-
mortality once held, while they do not wholly give
way, yield to personal experience of it. One reason
of this change is that as immortality belongs to the
order of existence — a natural and not a miraculous
fact — it must be realized in one's own experience,
like every other truth in human life — that is, it is
revealed through life. While this is a growing
'* In a recent book, Die Religionspsychologische Methode
in Religionswissenschaft und Theologie, Professor Georg
Wobbermin claims that theolo^ and reli^on are invulnerable
to science and to philosophy. By way of demonstration of
this claim, he sets down an old fashioned dogma: " Affirma-
tions of faith provide the highest possible ground for assur-
ance in the objective existence of God, and for the truth of
the Biblical revelation." I have reviewed that book at some
length in the Social and Religious Psychology number of the
Psychological Bulletin, Dec, 1915.
'"A Psychological Study of Religion; Chapter XI — The-
ology and Psychology. See on " The Theology that is a
Branch of Psychology," the Harvard Theological Review for
Oct., 1916.
THE MODERN BELIEF 151
feature in Christian consciousness, there are, in
my own case, two unlike facts attending it that
have not only strong weight of evidence, but great
spiritual uplift and comfort. I can but name
them.
" The first is drawn from the revelation of God
in creation. The one purpose in creation from the
first has been to produce man. Endless ages for
production; a few years and he goes out of exist-
ence! The improbability of this is so great that it
sweeps away all the difficulties that cluster about
death. . . . The other fact is the consciousness of
Christ. I do not refer to his authoritative word,
nor to his resurrection, however it be interpreted,
but to the spontaneous and natural way in which he
assumed the continuance of life forever. It was
never a question with him, and hence he said so little
about it. He predicates immortality as naturally
as a bird predicates flight when it feels its wings.
It had its ground in his absolute consciousness of
the fatherhood of God; if he is the Father, how
can he suffer his children to go out of existence?
This seems to me to be the rock on which our hope
of immortality is based.*' "
A professor of theology in one of the foremost
Presbyterian schools of the United States is con-
vinced that *' our human personal immortality can-
not be proved as a fact, compelling assent after the
fashion of proofs in physical or even in purely in-
tellectual matters." The arguments customarily
*^ From a symposium published in the Congregationalist;
Boston; 1904.
152 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
adduced are well nigh " utterly futile." Where-
from, then, shall the proof of immortality come?
The professor's answer is: —
" Any soul must come to grasp this truth of im-
mortality by the way of first realizing it as a truth
of its own very self, its being, its own life. . . . The
simple truth is that I must first have the reality
of immortality as an assurance included in my con-
sciousness of my own being and life." But yet, how
am I to know immortality?
"As the truth of myself." '' In large measure,
I must come to realize immortality as of myself by
the presence consciously in me of those things I in-
stinctively sense as eternal, the immortal things, the
things that have natural congruousness with, and
so suggest, the idea." . . . " There are things that
the soul feels instinctively as eternal, immortal
things. . . . The only way to have the sense of im-
mortality within oneself is simply to live immortally.
The soul must be kept clear — negatively — of the
things of thought and life that are unfitted to im-
mortality, and must cultivate and develop within
itself positively the thoughts and dispositions and
tastes and moods that are most naturally fitted to
the thoughts and the sense of it.
" Put into any soul, any life, the things that made
up the soul, the life, of Jesus Christ; let the hu-
mility, the purity, and the self-forgetting love, the
devotion to the Father, that were in the soul of
Christ, filling all his consciousness of himself and
making up his life — let these things and their kind
fill the conscious being of any man, and, in so far
THE MODERN BELIEF 153
as this is done, he will tend to carry in himself the
sense of his own Immortality." "
This is as full a statement as I have read of the
meaning of '* falling back upon inner experience."
As this argument is now frequently met with in the
religious press, and as it finds credence even among
distinguished professors of theology, it deserves
critical consideration. It will be sufficient for our
purpose to discuss the possible meaning of the sense
of one's own immortality, which is said to be pro-
duced in those who " sense as eternal " the virtues
of humility, purity, and self -forgetting love.
What are the characteristics of ** the sense of im-
mortality"? When we speak of feeling young or
old, well or ill, we mean definite experiences marked,
in the case of health, by clearness of sensation, quick-
ness and vigor of motor response, relish for food,
pleasant tone of consciousness, etc. ; and, in the case
of illness, by pain, motor sluggishness and un-
steadiness, diminished appetite, general inertia, un-
pleasant tone of consciousness, etc. The expression
" immortality feeling " can not mean in the passage
quoted any one or several of the ordinary experi-
ences, some of which have just been named; for it
designates an alleged unique, specific feeling. Let
us admit for the sake of argument that such a feel-
ing exists. There remains an insuperable difficulty,
namely, the passage from the feeling itself to the
conviction that it signifies the immortality of the
individual experiencing it. For, of course, a feeling
'' Edward Everett Bacon : " The Argument for Immortal-
ity"; The Outlook; New York; June 29, 1912.
154 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
is in itself nothing but a subjective experience. If,
when suffering from what is called a feeling of ill-
ness, I say that my body is not in good order, I
inter'pret the particular feeling or feelings. This
I am able to do correctly because of the frequent
connections I have established between my feelings
and my physiological condition. I have found, for
instance, that when a certain feeling was present, I
could not walk without fatigue, I could not make
certain movements without pain, I did not desire
food, and suffered if I ate. Furthermore, men of
science have established by observations and experi-
ments, similar correlations between certain feelings
and the condition of certain organs of the body;
correlations which in part have become known to
the laity. Therefore I say now with confidence,
when I have these feelings, " My body," or " this
part of my body, is disordered." But my knowl-
edge of the disorganization of the bodily machine
is, of course, not the feeling of illness. The former
might exist without the latter. A striking instance
of this is provided by the pronounced sense of well-
being experienced by sufferers from progressive
paralysis.
Has correspondence ever been observed between
a specific feeling experienced in this life and the
continuation after death of those possessing it? No
one ever had the opportunity of observing that per-
sons who had enjoyed the alleged feeling, or had
practiced the virtues said to induce the feeling of
immortality — humility, purity, self-forgetfulness
THE MODERN BELIEF 155
etc. — had actually survived death. As a matter of
fact, no one (spiritualists perhaps excepted) pre-
tends to have made this observation.
Any and every feeling, whatever name may be
given to it, is incontrovertible in so far as the feeling
itself, and no more, is affirmed. There is no con-
tradicting one who merely affirms that he is joyful,
or that he is sad ; nor one who declares that he feels
sixteen years old, provided he does not claim, in
addition, that he has lived only that number of years.
But if he passes from the feeling of youthfulness
to the affirmation that he is sixteen years old, then
his claim is open to verification. He may be asked
to produce his reasons, not for the feeling, but for
his interpretation of it. The theologians who write
as our author does, do not seem to know that no
particular feeling can of itself signify personal im-
mortality.
The " inner experience " which, these theologians
say, should and does convince of immortality is no
other than a sense of the worth of human life and
the realization that this life can be rationally and
morally satisfactory only if the good, or the su-
premely good endures. Professor Bacon's argument
is, therefore, at bottom, no more than a disguised
statement of the moral argument.
CHAPTER VI
THE DEMONSTRATION OF MODERN IM-
MORTALITY BY DIRECT SENSORY EVI-
DENCE AND SCIENTIFIC INDUCTION
The primary belief in continuation possessed the
incontrovertible validity belonging to facts of
sensory experience. Because of the nature of its
origin, the modern belief in fulfillment after death
lacks this certainty, and the protracted efforts
that have been made to gain for it metaphysical
certitude have secured at best no more than a hope
of its reality. Under these circumstances, it would
have been strange indeed if in the present scientific
age systematic efforts had not been made to lift
the modern belief above the parlous state in which
it was left by metaphysics. If a direct sensory
demonstration or an inductive scientific proof could
be secured, the modern belief would have gained the
assurance it now lacks.
A recent widespread effort to provide such proof
began a few decades ago and continues unabated to
this day. I allude to the kind of researches seen
at their best in the work of the " Society 'for
Psychical Research." This may be regarded as the
only new development in the history of the belief
since the production of the metaphysical proofs.
The literature on psychical research has become
vast and intricate and a critical discussion of it
156
THE MODERN BELIEF 157
would be so lengthy, and to most people so tedious,
that I shall refer the reader to the original reports '
and content myself with brief statements on three
topics: the methods of research, the results so far
secured, and the nature of the future life which the
alleged evidence would disclose. For the sake of
convenience I shall use '' spirit " and " spirit com-
munication " instead of " alleged spirit " and " al-
leged communication."
I. PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS
Spirit manifestations may be divided for con-
venience into two classes: the physical manifesta-
tions, such as movement of objects, production of
noises or music, materialization of spirits, and the
like; and the psychical manifestations, namely the
production of ideas, feelings, desires, or purposes,
either in a " medium " used as a transmitter, or
directly in the person with whom the spirit wishes
to communicate.
The outcome of observations under partial scien-
tific control that have been permitted by some me-
diums is now generally regarded as totally discredit-
ing the spiritistic origin of the physical manifesta-
tions; and also, though less conclusively, as dis-
crediting any interpretation involving other than
ordinary physical powers. The case against these
alleged manifestations was made only the more con-
vincing by the last great claimant to supernormal
power, Eusapia Palladino. This noted medium sub-
^ Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research.
(Twenty-seven volumes have already been issued.)
158 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
mitted to several investigations usually, however,
under her own conditions or her conditions only
slightly altered. The most thorough of these in-
vestigations was carried out between 1905 and 1907
under the auspices of the Institut General Psycho-
logique.' In this investigation a number of well-
known scientists participated, notably the physicists
Curie and d'Arsonval.
These experiments discovered not only a number
of tricks, but also Palladino's rooted aversion to
really scientific control and the impotency to which
she is reduced when she submits to conditions satis-
factory to the investigators. One of the interesting
discoveries of this committee was made by means of
a device recording, unknown to the medium, the
weight of the chair in which she sat during the table-
levitation performances. It was found that when-
ever the two feet of the table on her side, or three,
or all four feet of the table were lifted, there was
an increase in her weight, corresponding to the
weight of the table. And whenever the two feet
opposite the end at which Eusapia was seated were
lifted, the apparatus recorded a decrease in her
weight, i. e., just what would be expected on the
supposition that she pressed upon the near end of
the table in order to cause the raising of the op-
posite end.
Her success in deflecting " without contact *' a
delicate balance gave way to complete failure when
^ Dr. Jules Courtier: Rapport sur les Seances d' Eusapia
Palladino. Published by the Institute General Psychologique;
Paris; Vol. VIII, 1908. Pages 415-518.
THE MODERN BELIEF 159
it was protected in various ways devised for the pur-
pose. It was, moreover, discovered that a long hair
and a pin were among the apparatus apparently re-
quired for her demonstrations.
That cheating is a conspicuous feature of her
performances is recognized not only by the French
Committee, but by all those who have had her under
observation. The French Report admits, neverthe-
less, the possibility of the possession by Palladino
of an unknown power. It is argued that deception
in a medium does not preclude the possession of
supernormal power. One may in principle agree
with William James that it is " dramatically impos-
sible that the swindling should not have accreted
around some originally genuine nucleus," ' provided
it be admitted that fraudulent performances of one
kind may have accreted around genuine phenomena
of another kind. The wonders of the early mes-
merizers may, for instance, have been the starting
point for the production of other, never genuinely
produced performances ; or, the first, the honest per-
formance may have been a trance, a vision, a cure
which established a reputation for wonder-working.
May we not admit that in an effort to maintain that
reputation, persons have tried to cause objects to
move without touching them? That is a power at-
tributed fairly commonly to magic. And, failing
in this, may not some of these would-be magicians
prefer deception to renunciation ? A full knowledge
'"Confidences of a Psychical Researcher"; American
Magazine; October, 1909.
160 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
of the beginning of the career of mediums would
solve this problem.
It cannot be denied that deception in a medium
does not of itself preclude the possession of super-
normal power. Yet, there may be realized a combi-
nation of frequency of deception, kinds of perform-
ance, and nature of the required conditions which
would decrease to the vanishing point the prob-
ability of the presence in the medium of a super-
normal force. That combination is ralized, I think,
in the case of Palladino. When before the French
investigators she operated under the following con-
ditions : —
The room in which the experiments were made
was darkened, and, at times, quite dark. The
darker the room, we are told, the more remarkable
the performance. The .control of the medium's
hands was theoretically secured by two persons, each
holding one of hers; but in practice she insisted,
when she chose, upon the right to place her hands
on those of the controllers; end even, at times, to
give them gentle taps instead of remaining in con-
tact with them. Corresponding conditions existed
as to the control of her feet. During the sittings
her hands were ever in motion, carrying with them
those of the controllers. She refused to have pieces
of tape seven centimeters long sewed between her
sleeves and those of the controllers. She refused to
allow observers to be stationed in the room elsewhere
than around the table. After the first instantaneous
photograph had been taken by flashlight, she refused
to permit any to be taken without warning, on the
THE MODERN BELIEF 161
ground that it caused her a painful shock. She did
not propose to wear dark glasses, but expressed her
willingness to give the signal herself, " fuoco " /
Together with these facts must be weighed two
important considerations : the performances in which
she was not caught at tricks are of the same sort
as those in which she was ; and every one of the con-
ditions she maintained against the wish of the in-
vestigators favors deception. Why must there be
a cabinet closed in front by a curtain? Why must
the stand, the clay, and other objects be within reach
of her hands or feet? Why the poor illumination?
Why was she not willing to suffer the annoyance
of an unexpected flash of light and of a safe control
of her hands and feet at least during certain sittings
or parts of sittings, when the alleged power was
with her? Were she occasionally honest, she might,
it seems, occasionally dispense with some or all of
these suspicious circumstances.
That certain conditions must be observed in order
to make possible the manifestation of any power is
not disputed. But why is it that the required con-
ditions are here precisely those that would g\\Q the
medium a chance of cheating — of, for instance, sur-
reptitiously freeing her hands and feet, were she to
need their assistance. It is either because every one
of her productions is a trick, or because she is so
uncertain of the availability of her supernormal
power or so frequently averse to using it that she
is prepared in every instance to work by prestidigi-
tation, should she prefer or find it necessary to do
162 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
so. But, as she has, so far as I am aware, insisted
from the beginning upon these conditions, and as
other mediums have always done likewise, there is
the strongest presumption against the second sup-
position.
We need not be deterred from a negative conclu-
sion by the sitters' declaration that they cannot
possibly understand how, in light sufficient for ob-
servation and with her hands and feet under control,
Palladino could by normal means accomplish certain
of the things they have seen her do. Photography
shows how unable they were to realize what was
going on. In the only photograph taken without
warning, Eusapia is actually lifting the table with
her hands, while the controllers have theirs upon
hers; and yet they were not aware of her action.
In another photograph, the stand they thought they
had seen floating freely in the air appears supported
on the medium's neck and head. Their judgment as
to the sufficiency of light and the occupation of the
medium's hands while under control can evidently
not be relied upon.
What is true of Palladino is true in substance of
all mediums so far as the production of physical
phenomena is concerned. The physical manifesta-
tions with which mediums have entertained and
puzzled the world do not point to the existence of
spirits, or even in my opinion to supernormal powers
of any sort.*
* Palladino's public career came to an end in New York
in 1910, when, after certain seances at the house of Prof.
Herbert Lord of Columbia University, her clever practices
THE MODERN BELIEF 163
II. PSYCHICAL MANIFESTATIONS
The conclusion to be drawn from the mass of
evidence accumulated during the last twenty-five
years as to the origin of the psychical manifesta-
tions, the chief of which are the " messages " pur-
porting to come from disincarnate spirits, is much
less definite than in the case of the physical mani-
festations. The most famous of the living spirit-
mediums is doubtless Mrs. Piper of Boston. No
other medium has been so carefully and so long
studied by so many able investigators, and none has
contributed so much that seems beyond the inge-
nuity of any one to explain. Accounts of her
seances fill many thousand pages of the Proceedings,
The stage-setting of these seances is somewhat com-
plicated. The medium passes into a trance and
speaks or writes automatically, messages purport-
ing to come from some spirit; but this communi-
cating spirit is introduced and superintended by a
familiar spirit called the '' control." Mrs. Piper's
reputation for honesty has never been shaken.
Instead of entering into a critical analysis of
Mrs. Piper's utterances,' I shall devote the space
at my disposal to the more decisive experiments in
cross-correspondences, the latest and most promis-
were heartlessly exposed. Readers who wish to know wiiat
can be seen at.Palladino's seances by observers concealed m
♦ a bureau provided with a peephole, or flat on the floor under
the table, should read Collier's Weekly, May 14, 1910; and the
Neiv York Times, May 12, and following numbers.
' See the Proceedings of the English and of the American
S. P. R. Several years ago I examined critically in " Em-
pirical Data on Immortality," International Journal of Eth-
ics, 1903, XIV, pages 90-105, a voluminous report of Dr.
Hyslop upon a number of sittings given him by Mrs. Piper.
164 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
ing method for arriving at a settlement of the ques-
tion of survival after death. When a medium makes
a statement descriptive of some past event, and it is
left to the sitter to prove that neither he nor the
medium, nor perhaps any one living, ever had knowl-
edge of that event, the task is, to say the least, very
difficult; in fact it is usually quite impossible of
performance, for memory is not to be relied upon.
Cross-correspondence is unfortunately not free from
this difficulty. The theory is that if several persons
receive messages which when taken singly have no
meaning, but make sense when put together, we
should have to admit — on the supposition that
fraud is excluded — that those messages have been
suggested to the percipients by some mind. If,
moreover, the thing communicated does not seem to
have been possibly within the knowledge of any one
of the percipients ; and if it is discovered that some
dead person possessed that knowledge when on
earth; and, finally, if that person is mentioned by
name as the communicator in one or several of the
unintelligible parts of the message, then, at least a
strong presumption in favor of the existence of that
spirit would have been produced.
The experiments in cross-correspondence fProc.
vols. XX-XXVII) have been conducted chiefly
through three English ladies, one of them residing
in India, and Mrs. Piper. Chance coincidence is
absolutely insufficient to account for the results
secured, and collusion is rejected by all those who
know something of these persons and of the con-
ditions of the tests. There is apparently no escape
THE MODERN BELIEF 165
from the conclusion reached by that acute critic and
tenacious skeptic, Frank Podmore : '' The automa-
tists unquestionably show that they possess informa-
tion which would not have reached their conscious-
ness by normal means." ' Whether the explanation
of these mysterious cross-correspondences will be
found in telepathy acting at any distance, taken
together with the well-known fact of the reappear-
ance in certain mental states (in trance-conscious-
ness, for instance) of things once known but long
forgotten, even of things of which we never had
more than an imperfect knowledge and should at
no time have been able to reproduce correctly, re-
mains for future investigations to disclose. As long
as we can affirm with Podmore that *' the trance per-
sonalities have never told us anything which was
not probably within the knowledge of some living
person," telepathy will appear the more plausible
and the less revolutionary hypothesis. But who
will venture to formulate the test which will mark
particular messages as not within the *' possibly
known " to some one living anywhere on the surface
of the globe?
The telepathic hypothesis of spirit-message re-
ceives support from the nature of the com-
munications made by the alleged spirits regarding
their state and the circumstances of their exist-
ence. They have been fairly loquacious; yet not
any of them, not even those from whom much could
have been expected, have revealed anything at
• The New Spiritualism; page 302. For a resume of the
most striking cross-correspondence, see pages 237-276.
166 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
all More significant still than the insignificance of
the remarks of these alleged spirits concerning the
other life, is their pertinacious effort to avoid
answering the many and pointed questions addressed
to them on that subject. From Richard Hodgson,
the late secretary of the Society, nothing enlighten-
ing has been learned, despite his haste in announc-
ing his existence. For several years after his death,
Mrs. Piper scarcely held a sitting without some
manifestation of what professed to be Hodgson's
spirit. He talked abundantly of trifling incidents,
presumably for the purpose of establishing his iden-
tity; but when questioned concerning the cir-
cumstances of his existence, he either driveled or ex-
cused himself clumsily and departed. Frederick
Myers and Wm. James have been equally disappoint-
ing.
It has been urged that the spirits may find it
difficult to work with the muscular mechanism of
the medium; a disincarnate soul may be inefficient
in the matter of bodily control. He may also be
for a time not fully conscious and muddled. The
fact is, however, that they do communicate a great
many things ; it takes volumes to record their utter-
ances! The difficulties are apparently of such a
peculiar nature that nothing concerning the other
life, and only things that have taken place on this
earth, transpire. None of the hypotheses offered
accounts for this puzzling aspect of the communica-
tions, not even the latest suggestion which would
shift the blame from the spirit to the medium.
Here we are asked to admit that because of the
THE MODERN BELIEF 167
peculiar condition of spirit-existence, the spirit's
mental content is transmitted whole to the medium ;
in a lump, as it were; instead of coming out in the
organized and selected form which is insured by nor-
mal speech/ Were it so, it would be no wonder
should the medium get confused, contradict himself,
and speak irrelevantly. But why, when he knows
that the sitter seeks information on things above,
does the medium not succeed once in a while in choos-
ing, in the total consciousness of the spirit, some-
thing which would gratify the sitter's curiosity;
why are the things picked out always meaningless,
ridiculous or trifling? To this pertinent question
no satisfactory answer has ever been given. The
limitation of the knowledge of the alleged spirits to
earthly facts points to an earthly origin of the
medium's information.
It is sometimes supposed that all the prominent
researchers have come to accept spirit survival.
This is far from true. Henry Sidgwick one of the
most earnest and influential of the founders of the
S. P. R., ready enough though he was to believe, died,
according to the report of his friend, Wm. James,
" in the same identical state of doubt and of balance
in which he started." ' And Wm. James himself,
who is often mentioned as an out and out believer
in spiritism, wrote not long before his death, " For
25 years I have been in touch with the literature of
Psychical Research, and I have been acquainted with
^ James Hyslop: Psychical Research and Survival; 1913
Page 126. See also pages 129, 131.
' American Magazine, October, 1909.
168 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
numerous researchers. . , . Yet I am theoretically
no further than I was at the beginning." ' He
maintained consistently throughout his life an at-
titude of suspended judgment regarding the
" proofs " of spirit existence. Both his open mind-
edness and his negative attitude as to the results,
appear clearly in his comments on certain sittings
Mrs. Piper gave him, in which his lately deceased
friend Richard Hodgson was supposed to have com-
municated, " I therefore repeat that if ever our
growing familiarity with these phenomena should
tend more and more to corroborate the hypothesis
that * spirits ' play some part in their production,
I shall be quite ready to undeafen my ears, and to
revoke the negative conclusions of this limited re-
port.'* ^"
® Log. cit.
''Proc; Vol. XXIII; 1909; page 29.
It may be added that James did not desire the demonstra-
tion of the spiritistic hypothesis. He never accepted the
" soul " theory, in part for lack of evidence and in part be-
cause he could not make any use of the notion of a simple,
permanent essence. There was no room in his philosophy
for the survival after death of individual souls. These two
negations — no soul and the loss of personal identity after
death — were early established in the mind of the American
philosopher. And yet, he was far from believing that death
ends all. Almost as early as his denial of a soul, one finds
him surmising, if not affirming, that although man does not
preserve his identity beyond death, he becomes at death in
some way an immortal partaker in a superhuman conscious-
ness. The idea of a " sea of consciousness " in which we are
somehow plunged, was one of James's fundamental beliefs,
or rather, to use his own term, " overbeliefs."
The best history of mediumship is Frank Podmore's Mod-
ern Spiritualism: A History and a Criticism, 2 vols.; Lon-
don; Methuen & Co. Brought up to date in The Newer
Spiritualism; New York; Henry Holt & Company; 1911.
THE MODERN BELIEF 169
Whether the results of the S. P. R. are regarded
as proving survival or not, it must be admit-
ted that no amount of ingenuity in explanation
and no optimism can hide the unattractiveness of
the glimpses that may have been caught of the other
life ; there is no hint in these glimpses of any glori-
fication; nor, for that matter, of any retribution.
That other world would come much closer to a real-
ization of the primary than of the modem concep-
tion of continuation. The disincarnate souls ap-
pear on the whole as enfeebled and inefficient replica
of earthly beings. This is not the kind of con-
tinuation which the modern world desires ; it lacks
the essential features of the Christian conception of
immortality.
III. THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.
The numerous alleged apparitions of persons once
on earth can have demonstrative value only if the
hypothesis of hallucination is excluded, and if, be-
sides, sufficient proof is given of the identity of the
ghost. Should we admit that these conditions have
been realized in the case of Christ, the immortality
of man would not thereby have been established,
since, according to orthodox Christianity, Christ
was human only by his mother. The rising from
the dead of a divine being could not prove that mere
man will conquer death. In good logic, only dis-
believers in the supernatural birth, who nevertheless
accept the historical records of Christ's resurrection
170 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
as convincing, may rely upon him as a witness of
the possibility of their own immortality/'
As a matter of fact, Christians who have embraced
the unitarian heresy, and such Christians are now
found in most of our churches, usually profess doubt
as to the sufficiency of the records. And contem-
porary theologians are wont to speak of Christ's re-
surrection as warranting a hope of immortality and
no more. Professor Wm. A. Brown of Union Theo-
logical Seminary (New York) concludes his con-
sideration of immortality by this affirmation, " The
most that we can hope to prove by testimony is that
something happened in the past." ''
The deeper influence of Christ upon the belief
in immortality is after all not due to his alleged
resurrection but to his life and to his own belief in
human immortality. When he convinces men of im-
mortality, it is not so much because they believe he
rose from the dead, as because he is thought to have
taught resurrection and because he lived, so at
least it seems to them, as an immortal being would
live. The reported fact of the resurrection is it-
self, one may hold, a consequence of the intensity to
which the motives for the belief in fulfillment after
death had been stimulated by the commanding per-
sonality of the founder of Christianity. For the
rest, the influence of the belief in the resurrection is
probably enormously exaggerated. It is not Christ
'' But, as one of my reviewers remarks, "the resurrection
of Christ establishes beyond doubt that view of the universe
of which belief in God and immortality is an integral part."
'' The Christian Hope: A Study of the Doctrine of Im-
mortality; Scribner; 1912. Page 179.
THE MODERN BELIEF 171
who brought into the world the hope of immortality ;
for not only the hope, but the belief had at the be-
ginning of our era already become the possession
of many in Palestine as well as elsewhere.
The outcome of the last two chapters is that the
metaphysical proofs of immortality are admittedly
inadequate; that the ground of that belief when it
is based on ** inner experience " is really the naive
conviction that human life at its best is too precious
to end with death, and that survival is demanded
for the gratification of ideal desires ; and finally that
the effort to prove modern immortality by the
methods of science has so far remained inconclusive.
PART II
STATISTICAL STUDY OF THE BELIEF IN A
PERSONAL GOD AND IN PERSONAL IM-
MORTALITY IN THE UNITED STATES
INTRODUCTION
In the present status of religion and of phi-
losophy, there is only one fundamentally significant
classification of the various conceptions of God.
On the one side must be placed the conceptions that
are consistent with the means of worship common
to all religions, original Buddhism and Comtism
excepted; on the other, those that are not. Every
book of worship at present in use implies a Being in
direct affective and intellectual relation with his
worshipers; a Being, therefore, endowed with will,
feeling, and intelligence. The surrender of that
conception would mean either the disappearance or
the radical transformation of practically all the re-
ligions known to history.
Who would recognize the Christian religion, either
Protestant or Roman Catholic, were all traces of
direct communication with the Divinity now indi-
cated in its liturgies to be removed ? The Christian
God and the unknowable First Cause of Spencer, or
the impassible Absolute of most contemporary
172
THE STATISTICS 173
philosophers, are essentially different conceptions
which can be used interchangeably neither in religion
nor in philosophy.'
I have called those beings who hold the direct
personal relations with man characteristic of the
worship of the historical religions, " personal gods."
It is with the gods of that description only that we
are concerned in this volume.
The expression " personal immortality " is
usually understood to mean the continuation after
death of the conscious individual and implies the
continuation of the sense of one's identity. Any
conception which does not include this sense of iden-
tity is not the one intended here.'
The beliefs in a personal God and in a personal
immortality are regarded as cardinal tenets of
Christianity, and, many would hold, of every pos-
sible religion. Yet, in the absence of any reliable
knowledge, the widest divergence of opinion exists
regarding their prevalence in Christian countries.
Pulpit orators assert, for instance, that scientists
and philosophers, with few exceptions, share with
them the '' fundamentals " of the Christian faith.
On the other hand, '' free thinkers " declare that no
man of science can accept the Christian beliefs ; and
that, as to the clergy, they are mostly dissemblers.
One of my correspondents, a chemist, adds to a
declaration of belief in God and immortality, *' You
' See the preface of this book for some remarks concerning
the meanings of the term " God."
* For the sake of brevity, I shall in the sequel omit usually
the adjective " personal," both with reference to God and to
immortality.
174 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
will find that 90 per cent, of the chemists of this
country believe as I do." But another chemist, a
disbeliever, informs me that no more than 40 per
cent, of his brother chemists accept these two be-
liefs. If men of science accustomed to accuracy in
the gathering and weighing of evidence, diverge to
that extent when speaking of their own profession,
what reliance can be placed upon the opinion of those
who lack those advantages ?
Although valuable statistics on almost every pos-
sible subject have been compiled, none really signifi-
cant have been attempted regarding the beliefs in
which we are interested. Is it because there would
be no gain in definite knowledge? Who would ven-
ture that assertion? It is rather the old desire to
protect " holy things " from too close scrutiny, and
also the more or less unconscious antagonism of those
interested in the maintenance of the status quo in
religion that have stood in the way of those who
might have been disposed to face the diflficulties of a
statistical investigation of religious convictions.
It has seemed to me desirable on general theoretic-
cal ground, as well as for reasons of practical im-
portance to religion, to add to the study of the ori-
gins of the belief in immortality presented in this
book, and to the study of the origins of gods set
forth in a preceding volume, a statistical and psy-
chological inquiry into the present status of these
beliefs among us. Studies of origin, when not
brought into comparison with present conditions,
lose much of their import. If a knowledge of the
past is necessary to a full understanding of the
THE STATISTICS 175
present, acquaintance with the living present is no
less indispensable to a complete understanding of
the past.
Limited in its scope as it is, the present research
will, nevertheless, I hope, be found worthy of atten-
tion not only by the students of religion, but also by
those interested in the possibilities of the statistical
method. The sociologist speaks freely of develop-
ment and of progress, but he has measured only
material changes. He may state with sufficient pre-
cision changes in the wealth of a nation and in
church membership ; but he cannot express definitely
the alterations that have taken place in the con-
ceptions and convictions of men. For instance,
there exists no information that would make possi-
ble a reliable statistical comparison of the religious
ideas and beliefs of the Europe of the beginning of
the last century with those of the present. And
yet, changes in conceptions and convictions are more
indicative than wealth of profound social transfor-
mations. Statistics of belief, similarly computed at
different periods, would provide a measure of some
of the changes that take place in the moral life of
a given population. The influences upon religious
beliefs of general intellectual ability and of knowl-
edge of definite kinds could also be ascertained, did
we but possess statistics established separately for
groups of men differing in these respects. Recent
researches have shown that problems seemingly as
difficult can be solved by the statistical method.'
~ » I allude to the work of James McKeen Cattell, Karl Pear-
son, Edward Thorndike, Dr. James Woods, and others, on
176 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
To religion itself, the significance of an exact
knowledge of the present trend of fundamental be-
liefs could not easily be overstated. In order to ful-
fill effectively their mission, religious teachers must
know the needs of men, their hopes, beliefs, and
unbeliefs. It is, furthermore, essential to intellect-
ual and moral progress that the beliefs that come into
existence should have free play. New beliefs must
have the chance of proving their worth in open con-
test. But a fair struggle cannot take place when
people are dissuaded from seeking knowledge, or
when knowledge is hidden.
A few years ago I began, at first rather tenta-
tively, an attempt to determine scientifically the
presence in particular classes of persons, of the be-
liefs in God and immortality. In the earlier inves-
tigations, I aimed at the same time at securing in-
formation as intimate as possible on certain aspects
of religious life. The groups chosen for study were
American students, scientists, historians, sociolo-
gists, psychologists, and philosophers. The choice
of these groups was determined chiefly by the fact
that these men, because of their intelligence, habits
of reflection, and knowledge, may be regarded as in
the vanguard of progress; their opinions represent
probably the public opinion of to-morrow. I was also
attractd to these classes by the possibility they af-
forded of correlating belief and unbelief with the
kind of knowledge, possessed by the believer or un-
believer, and with the possession of certain traits
heredity and on the conditions productive of insanity, oi
genius, of high intellectual ability, etc.
THE STATISTICS 177
upon which depend success in intellectual and other
pursuits. The existence of authoritative lists of
the persons belonging to these several groups was
also a circumstance of considerable advantage to me.
Before presenting the results secured, I should
like to offer some critical comments on the kind of
statistical inquiries and the symposia which have so
far taken the place of scientific statistics.
Critical Remarks upon Recent Symposia and Sta-
tistical Investigations. — The past twenty years have
seen the publication of many symposia and statistical
inquiries on God and immortality.* Most of the sym-
posia are mere collections of edifying testimonies
possessing no statistical value whatsoever. Near-
ly all of them produce upon the average reader
the impression of a more or less universal accept-
ance of the beliefs in behalf of which they speak.
Publish two hundred attestations of a particular
opinion upon any question, gathered from among a
population of one million persons, and the great ma-
jority of the readers will not be able to resist the be-
lief that that opinion is the dominant one in the pop-
* Clara Spalding Ellis: What's Next? Or Shall a Man Live
Again? Richard G. Badger; Boston.
Robert J. Thompson: The Proof of lAfe After Death; A
Twentieth Century Symposium: Chicago, 1902.
E. D. Adams: This Life and the Next; Impressions and
Thoughts of Notable Men and Women from Plato to Ruskin:
London; 1902.
Samuel J. Barrows: Science and Immortality; The Chris-
tian Register Symposium Revised and Enlarged: Boston;
Geo. H. Ellis; 1887.
Arthur H. Tabrum: Religious Beliefs of Scientists; A
Reply to a Challenge by the Rationalistic Press Association
of Great Britain : Hunter and Longhurst; London; 1913
(140 letters from English scientists).
178 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
ulation to which these two hundred persons belong.
Whereas it is theoretically possible that every one of
the 999,800 silent ones hold another opinion.
What, for instance, is the significance of the two
hundred testimonies of Christian belief gathered by
Clara Spaulding Ellis — the largest collection of the
kind with which I am acquainted? Two hundred
voices belonging to several generations of people of
many nationalties, is one voice in a million. They
belong, it is true, to the upper classes. Let us say,
then, that they represent one person in ten thousand.
What are the opinions of the nine hundred and
ninety-nine others?
To this illusion produced by symposia is usually
added deception — unintentional, to be sure — of
considerable importance. Because of insufficient
definition of the terms upon which the meaning of
the testimonies turns, the testifiers are understood
to support opinions which frequently are not theirs.
A recent volume entitled Religious Beliefs of Scien-
tists provides a notable illustration of this. The
book is an attempt " to ascertain the truth or falsity
of certain assertions made by Freethinkers and Ag-
nostics, and other opponents of religion." Here are
two of these assertions : " It is extremely doubtful
whether any scientist or philosopher really holds the
doctrine of a personal God " ; " Beyond all question
the higher culture of America is rationalistic from
New York to California. " These are reckless as-
sertions, but our present concern is with the attempt
of the author of the book mentioned to prove them
false, and not with their reliability. He addressed
THE STATISTICS 179
to a number of scientists, nearly all British, these
two questions:
*' Is there any real conflict between the facts of
science and the fundamentals of Christianity?"
" Has it been your experience to find men of science
irreligious and anti-Christian?"
The hundred and forty scientists who answered
are nearly all men past middle life, many are very
old, and quite a number are now dead. They do not
therefore represent the beliefs of the rising, but of
the passing generation of English men of science.
The significance of this inquiry turns upon the
meaning attached to the expression '' the funda-
mentals of Christianity." The author does not de-
fine it; he does not even ask his correspondents to
say what meaning they ascribe to that expression.
As a matter of fact, very few have thought it neces-
sary to be explicit. When they affirm, of themselves
or of others, a '' deeply religious " disposition, one
very properly wonders whether to understand acces-
sibility to awe and reverence, which, we are told on
every hand are " the fundamental religious emo-
tions " ; or whether to suppose that, in addition to
these emotions shared by all pagans with Christians,
these persons hold as essential to salvation a belief
in the Apostles' and Nicean creeds.
That great men of science should have been con-
tent to express themselves in terms so absurdly in-
definite, would be incredible if one did not know that
it is a still widespread habit not to think about re-
ligion ; and that, should you have transgressed this
rule, you are expected to hold your peace, or to speak
180 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
with so much discretion that the sway of the tenets
you now disbelieve may remain unshaken.
" I am not able to write you at length," says Lord
Rayleigh, *' but I may say that in my opinion true
Science and true Religion neither are, nor could be
opposed." Sir William Ramsey, James Ward, and
dozens of others, write just as unexplicitly. The
former holds that *' between the essential truth of
Christianity and the established facts of Science
there is no real antagonism " ; and the latter is of
the opinion that '* there is not and never can be any
opposition between Science and Religion, any more
than there can be any between Grammar and Re-
ligion." But neither of these men says what he
means by " religion," or by the '* essential truth of
Christianity " ; and yet it is well known that the wid-
est divergences of views exist regarding the truths
esential to Christianity.
The distinguished psychologist. Professor G. F.
Stout, is an exception to the rule. He knows that in
answering the queries of Mr. Tabrum, the meaning
of " essentials of Christianity " must be explicitly
stated under penalty of utter confusion. He writes,
" I should also agree in a sense that there is no an-
tagonism between the established facts of Science
and the fundamental teachings of Christianity, but I
should define * fundamental teachings of Christian-
ity ' as those elements of Christian doctrine which
have given Christianity its influence for good in the
world. What are these?" Stout does not answer
this question, but his published writings, warrant, it
appears to me, the statement that the influence he
THE STATISTICS 181
acknowledges is essentially independent of inspira-
tion, revelation, the divinity ' of Christ, and even of
the existence of a benevolent God who hears and
may answer man's desire and supplications. Nev-
ertheless, the majority of the readers of that book
will probably put Professor Stout on Tabrum's side
of the controversy.
This book, worthless to one desiring to know what
English scientists really believe, is useful as a dem-
onstration of the ambiguities tolerated in religious
matters, not only by the muddle headed and igno-
rant, but even by acute minds trained in the accurate
methods of science.
With one exception, the researches in statistical
form upon Immortality and other religious beliefs '
are completely meaningless when considered as sta-
tistics. One of these will serve the purpose of
bringing out the essential conditions to be fulfilled
by a valid statistical inquiry in this field.
In The Religion of One Hundred and Twenty-Six
College Students are to be found tables purporting to
' I use these words in their historical, doctrinal meaning,
not in the sense which would make every man " inspired "
and " divine."
' F. C. S. Schiller : " The answers to the American Branch's
Questionnaire regarding Human Sentiment as to a Future
Life," Proc. of the Soc. for Psychical Research; Part 49;
1904. Vol. XVIII; pages 416-450. Reproduced in substance
in Humanism; London; Macmillan; 1903.
Morse and Allen: "The Religion of One Hundred and
Twenty-six College Students": Journal of Religious Psy-
chology; 1913; Vol. VII; pages 175-194. ^ ,.^ „ ^ ^ .
Simon Spidle : " The Belief in Immortality : Journal of
Religious Psychology; 1912; Vol. V; pages 5-51.
Colin A. Scott : " Old Age and Death " : Ameriacn Journal
of Psychology; 1890; Vol. VIII.
182 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
give information upon the number of students of a
certain college who pray, attend church, believe in
immortality, and upon other related topics. It ap-
pears, in particular, that one hundred students pray
and that twenty-six do not. We knew already that
many American students pray; what more do we
know now? Nothing more, since we are left in the
dark concerning over two-thirds (274) of the stu-
dents who received the questions and left them un-
answered. Should these be dominantly non-praying
persons, the religious status of the college would be
altogether different from what the incomplete statis-
tics offered us seem to indicate. The facts gathered
have no statistical value whatsoever. In order to be
valid for a whole group, a statistical investigation
must include every member or nearly every mem-
ber of it; or, if a part of the group is used as re-
presenting the whole, it must be an unselected and
not too small fraction of the whole.
The exception to which I referred above, is the inquiry
of the American Branch of the Society for Psychical Re-
search. It is, however, concerned not with the number of be-
lievers in immortality, but with other problems, mainly the
desire for it. Even that investigation is not free from ob-
jection since the Questionnaire was " quite random and un-
systematic," and since it was answered by much less than
one-third of those to whom it was addressed directly or
through its publication in various journals. As it was circu-
lated chiefly by the members of the Society for Psychical Re-
search and in spiritualistic circle (several spiritualistic jour-
nals reprinted the questions), the reported number of believ-
ers is obviously unduly large. This, Dr. Schiller himself ad-
mits. The investigation is nevertheless very far from worth-
less ; the methodological defect influences, in fact, only the re-
sults secured by the first question (Would you prefer to live
after death or not?). The five other questions are addressed
to those who have answered the first. Now, all, or nearly all
of those who answered the first answered also the last five
questions. Thus, while this inquiry contributes nothing
THE STATISTICS 183
definite to the general statistics of belief in immortality, it
provides valid statistical information upon the persons who
answered its first question. In addition, it offers a rich ma-
terial on the psychology of belief.
The only report so far published refers to questions IV
and VI Dr. Schiller, who prepared it, is not to be held re-
sponsible for the conduct of the investigation. The Ones-
tio7inatre (see below) was issued from the United States by
Dr. Richard Hodgson, at the time Secretary of the Society.
INQUIRY INTO HUMAN SENTIMENT WITH REGARD TO A
FUTURE LIFE
I. Would you prefer (a) to live after "death" or (b)
not? ^ ^
II. (a) If I. (a), do you desire a future life whatever
the conditions might be?
(b) If not, what would have to be its character to
make the prospect seem tolerable? Would you
e. g., be content with a life more or less like vour
present life? ^
(c) Can you say what elements in life (if any) are
felt by you to call for its perpetuity?
III. Can you state why you feel in this way, as regards
questions I. and II.? s ua
IV. Do you NOW feel the question of a future life to be
ot urgent importance to your mental comfort?
V. Have your feelings on questions I., II. and IV. under-
gone change? If so, when and in what ways?
VI. (a) Would you like to know for certain about the
tuture life, or (6) would you prefer to leave it a
matter of faith?
CHAPTER VII
INVESTIGATION A: THE BELIEF IN GOD
AMONG AMERICAN COLLEGE STUDENTS
If fifty years ago American students had been
asked to formulate their beliefs, I surmise that they
would have answered, with some uniformity and as-
surance, in the terms of the Catechisms then in use.
They would have affirmed, for instance, a belief in
the one true God, Creator of heaven and earth, in
whom dwell three persons of one substance, the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. How is it to-
day? Official creeds and articles of faith have re-
mained substantially unchanged, and the clergy are
still expected to teach the tenets of their religion.
What is the faith of the " flower of the rising genera-
tion"?
A few years ago I drew up four questions, and suc-
ceeded in having them answered by all the students
of a number of classes belonging to non-technical de-
partments of nine colleges of high rank, and by two
classes (seventy-eight answers) of a normal school.
Nearly one thousand answers were received, 97 per
cent, of which are from students between eighteen
and twenty years of age. This number of answers
is small, yet their significance is considerable. With
obvious limitations, they provide reliable informa-
tion as to the state of mind of students in non-tech-
nical college departments regarding the Christian
184
THE STATISTICS 185
conception of God. These data have special value
because every student in the class when the question-
naire was distributed, answered/
' The Questionnaire (see below) was distributed in the
class room by the instructor in psychology, or, less frequent-
ly, in philosophy, who had been directed to read to the class
the remarks printed as introduction to the questions, and
warned against discussing them. The students were then
allowed the remainder of the class-period to formulate their
answers. In order to encourage complete freedom of expres-
sion, signatures were not requested.
Nine hundred and twenty-seven answers were received
(289 from men and 638 from women) from nine colleges and
78 from one normal school. The tabulation was already
completed when it occurred to me that for the sake of greater
homogeneity the answers from the normal school had better
been omitted. They include a larger proportion of believers
than the others. I secured the services of instructors in psy-
chology and philosophy merely because of my acquaintance
with them, and of their interest in the investigation which
should not, however, be thought to reflect in a special way
their teaching, for the students were all in their first year
of psychology or philosophy, and nearly all of them in their
first semester. Any one familiar with what is taught in the
first semester of an elementary course in these branches will
know that the opinion of the students on the subject of this
investigation is not likely to have been directly affected by
their professors. Their ingenuousness with regard to any
philosophical knowledge appears to me demonstrated by the
papers themselves. Should further doubts remain concern-
ing this point, they will be removed by the outcome of Inves-
tigation B, in which every student of one college took part,
and which is in substantial agreement with the result of
Investigation A.
A wider and more accurate representative value might be
claimed for this inquiry if each participating college were
represented in it by a number of answers proportional to the
number of its students. Interesting additional knowledge
would have been gained if the colleges had been classified
according to their academic standards and religious inter-
ests, and the answers from each had been correlated with
these features. Again, information of considerable impor-
tance would have been secured if entering classes could have
been compared with senior classes. These and other inquiries
would be well worth the trouble they would entail, but they
will I fear become practicable only when the existing tra-
186 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
I. TYPICAL ANSWERS, IN EXTENSO
Before presenting the results of this inquiry in
statistical form, I shall quote in extenso a number of
typical answers ' with the purpose of illustrating the
diverse points of view and the temper of these stu-
dents. With one exception, every quotation is rep-
resentative of a large number of others of the same
type, if not of the same quality. No student of
human nature will complain of the number of these
documents. He will rather find a keen interest in
ditional opposition, passive when not active, to the search
for definite information regarding religious beliefs has con-
siderably weakened.
If the scope of this investigation is narrow, it is not
through lack of desire on my part to make it broader. Cir-
cumstances imposed narrow limitations as a condition of
success.
QUESTIONNAIRE UPON THE BELIEF IN GOD
The purpose of the following questions is to find out what
are your real beliefs concerning God. We know well enough
what people are suposed to believe, but we have little op-
portunity of finding out what they actually believe.
Not what one should or would like to believe, but what
one really believes, is asked for in these questions.
Be as clear and definite as you can be without going be-
yond the truth, but do not refuse to answer because you can-
not be otherwise than indefinite. The very lack of definite-
ness is a fact well worth ascertaining. The answers need not
be signed, but the approximate age is desired.
1. Do you think of God as a personal or impersonal being?
2. What difference do you make between a personal and
an impersonal being?
3. Describe as fully as you can how, under what image,
or images, you think of God. Distinguish here between what
in your description is for you merely an image, a form of
speech, and what is the reality.
4. What difference would the non-existence of God make
in your daily life?
* Except for abbreviations, these answers are published
here as they were written. The numbers designate the ques-
tions to which the quotations refer.
THE STATISTICS 187
observing the amazingly different ways in which
persons in similar situations think and feel. Fre-
quently they occupy opposite positions on questions
declared by the Christian church to be matters of
salvation or damnation. And yet, these young peo-
ple are receiving the same teaching, they work and
play together; and, for the most part, do not give
any indication in their conduct of these alleged life-
and-death differences.
The reader interested in religious education should
find the following pages particularly enlightening.
Vigorous efforts are being made in the United States
to standardize educational methods, and protests in-
spired by the danger of uniformity have already been
heard. This investigation will show that religion
is running an opposite danger. Stupendous igno-
rance is the price paid by our youth for the absence
of teaching and guidance. The situation cannot be
improved until traditional and no longer teachable
beliefs have been replaced in the confidence of public
opinion by others in agreement with modern knowl-
edge.
It will be observed that an opportunity was given
the respondents to define the meaning they ascribed
to the term '* personal " as applied to God. This
seemed wiser than for me to provide a definition.
Their efforts to define that expression are most sug-
gestive.
I should perhaps add, by way of partial explana-
tion of the intellectual naivete and other defects of
several in these answers, that the writers were given
little more than a half hour during which to produce
188 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
something like photographs of the content of their
mind with regard to one of the most difficult sub-
jects possible.
I. A tvoman, age 19. — I begin with the naive and
rather commonplace statement of a person who feels
keenly the need for affection and moral support.
" 1. God is a very personal being because he al-
ways listens and answers, and is . . . interested in
us.
" 3. Under no image or images do I think of God.
He exists everywhere, was heard as a ' still, small
voice,' and seen as a dove, but I do not think of him
as such. Except as he was revealed in his son,
Jesus Christ, I have no image of God in my mind.
... I know he is not like anything I have ever seen.
How do I think of God? As a spirit, infinite, eter-
nal, and unchangeable ; in him dwell wisdom, power,
holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. I think of
God as the maker of this whole world, of every man,
woman, and child in it. He knows the past, present,
and future. I think of him as the ruler of the lives
of each of us. And out of his inexhaustible love, he
is deeply interested in every person on this earth.
Therefore we can pray to him, asking and receiving
what is good for us. He is like a human father, but
divine.
" 4. If I did not believe that there is a God, if this
life was all (for the belief in God brings with it a
belief in a world to come) , I think my life would be
a very unhappy one. In that case one might as
well enjoy himself as much as possible here. ... I
certainly would do what pleases me most
THE STATISTICS 189
'' It would be almost unbearable to part from one's
friends if one did not hope ever to see them again."
II. A looman, sophomore, very different from the
one just quoted.
- 1. I do not believe in God. (This, of course,
prevents my answering the first three questions.)
'' 4 I can remember when I gave up my last at-
tempt to believe in God. The only difference I felt
in my daily life when I gave up the belief was that 1
felt a greater sense of responsibility for my own con-
duct. I also felt more independent. I have not
been able to shake off a slight feeling of contempt for
the narrow bigotry and superstition of conventional
beliefs which most people accept without allowing
their reason to act."
III. A ivoman, junior.— The poetical, richly sen-
sitive nature of this person makes a strong contrast
with the hard self-reliance of the preceding one.
" 1. I think of God as a personal being.
" 2. The difference between a personal and an im-
personal God to me is that a * personal God ' is in-
terested in each human being . . . whereas an ' im-
personal being ' is a ruling law that sets the world
in motion and allows natural forces once created to
operate, with indifference on his part. The difference
is I think, that of a God who feels (though I suppose
not with such violence as to disturb his perfect con-
trol) as contrasted with a God who knows no emo-
tion, but is all reason and power.
"3. My conception of God, that is, the image I
form of him, changes. Most of the time he is to me
the spirit of life in the out-of-door world and then
190 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
the feeling I have of him is of some strong force
pushing up from the ground or in motion of some
sort, very free and pure and joyous. I don't think I
embody his force; I merely conceive of it as the
spirit within the trees, grass, or what not, and in
people the active impelling force that produces
some special act of strength or beauty. God at such
times is the lifting power of things, yet even then he
is personal, a disembodied joy is the nearest I have
ever gotten to a definition of him. At other times,
when I am indoors, and cannot get into the buoy-
ancy of this conception of God, when imagination is
dull or I am depressed, I think of God in the image
of a vast and understanding face, a face that is un-
defined except in the general impression of august
might and sympathy. This is to me merely a sym-
bol which I never think of as real. It comes as the
consequence of human limitations and I take it as an
expression of the sluggishness of my mind. At times
when the visual sense is not keenly alive, God means
to me a voice, the voices heard in plant life, and
then it is still a manifestation of a personal being
but I cannot conceive of him further.
" 4. The difference in the actual doings of daily
life would be immaterial, and the relations between
me and human beings would remain the same, be-
cause the humanitarian motive seems stronger than
the divine. The diflPerence would come in the lack of
final purpose seen in life, an exchange from optim-
ism to pessimism, and more immediately there would
be a great diff*erence in my feeling for nature since
now my views are touched with Pantheism."
THE STATISTICS 191
IV. A woman, junior. — In nothing do these stu-
dents differ more than in their opinion of the effect
the loss of belief in a personal God would have upon
their daily life. Number III thinks that it would
not alter her relations with her fellowmen ; number I,
on the contrary, says she would pursue her own en-
joyment and nothing else. She also thinks that
the disappearance of God would involve annihilation
at death, and that seems to her unbearable. Num-
ber IV is of the same mind as I. There would, she
thinks, be no use in trying to live without God.
Others, however, whom I shall quote, and many
others not mentioned here, get along, as they think,
very well without God and immortality. That, as
we all know, is quite possible. For the rest, num-
ber IV is evidently in a great muddle, and in distress
because she can longer follow the '' very firmly fixed
habit of mind " formed in her childhood. The mag-
nitude and intricacy of the issues on which she feels
obliged to take sides, quite overpower her.
'' 1. My whole idea of God is very definite. I
think of God as personal.
'' 2. I think that God is personal in that he stands
for a spiritual power that influences man, at least the
higher types of men, and influences them individu-
ally. I believe that it is this spiritual power in men
that makes them human and that makes their high-
er development possible. . . . But whether this comes
from an outside source such as God or is the natural
result of man's evolution I am not sure. I do not
believe that God exercises much control over actual
events.
192 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
*' 3. God seems to me wholly this spiritual force.
I do not believe that he is pleased or displeased with
actions, but I believe that the more a person acquires
this spirit the more he comes to feel what is called
' in harmony with God.' Hell seems to me the losing
of this power and heaven the complete acquiring of
it. I don't know whether I believe in the immortality
of the soul or not.
" 4. I have been brought up in a family and in
associations that have made religion a very firmly
fixed habit of mind, and I very naturally try to be-
lieve in all the orthodox beliefs. And it makes me
always very unhappy when I think that there is no
God. Of course, there would be no use in living
if there were no God and no immortality, and I think
it is largely this feeling that makes me try to per-
suade myself that there is. Certainly there is some
spiritual power somewhere and some First Cause for
the universe. ... I do not believe that I shall ever
come to definitely and finally believe in anything, for
about such things I shall never be able to make up
my mind. I have changed some of my ideas even
since I wrote this down, and it seems to me impos-
sible that any one should ever say he is sure of any-
thing."
V. A woman, junior. — Here is a person who seems
to possess settled views. Her description of a God
both personal and impersonal is interesting. Very
few of these students give evidence of so much
thoughtfulness.
" 1. My idea of God is a combination of the per-
sonal and impersonal idea. I believe in Him as ab-
THE STATISTICS 193
solutely perfect, and complete in all conceivable and
inconceivable respects ; that is, that He is something
beyond what the mind of man can grasp. What we
know of Him is only a part of His nature. He is
therefore impersonal in a general way. But the con-
ception of His completeness demands that He have
all characteristics, and therefore He has a personal
side.
" 2. As personal I consider a Being who has the
human attributes, who has emotions, senses, and per-
haps human form, resembling man, but not neces-
sarily on the same scale as man's. An impersonal
Being would be one who represented the idea of cer-
tain qualities, but was not their embodiment, who
did not stand for them in material form. The im-
personal idea is of a vague formless Being without
definiteness, not so much from a deficiency of the
personal qualities as from an existence too large for
our minds to grasp. It is as though every quality
were unlimited and stretched out to the infinite.
" 3. I believe that the personal aspect of God is
apparent only through the necessity of His com-
municating with man, that for this one purpose we
see this one part of Him, but we are unable to look
beyond and see Him in His entire nature. For this
reason, in my image of Him only the essential qual-
ities for communication are present. I think of
Him as having the sense of hearing, for he listens
to my prayers ; as having the qualities of mercy and
forgiveness, for I know he displays them toward me ;
and as having other qualities, such as interest in
human affairs, etc. But in order that he may show
194 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
these same qualities to everyone, he must be per-
fect and complete, and in my conception of the in-
finitely complete, the impersonal aspect is also neces-
sary to His nature. . . . This is, therefore, my real
idea of Him : certain personal appearances that He
should have as personal Being are not present, are
merely a form of speech.
" 4. I can say sincerely, that, as far as I can see,
the non-existence of God would take all the interest
out of my daily life. I have a feeling of His power
in everything that happens to me, and all my doings
are generally with an effort to please Him, but some-
times in rebellion against His power, for the very
fact that it is stronger than my own."
VI. A man, sophomore, aged 20. —
*' 1. It is so recently that I have begun to think on
the matter of a deity that I have not absolutely
decided as yet what God really is. To me, however,
in my present state of mind, I think of God rather
as an impersonal being.
'' 2. That is to say, I do not conceive of him as
being a certain body or material substance. For
this, it appears to me, would have to be limited in
proportions, but rather as an all-pervading power,
as it were, having all the senses of man and animal,
only in a most perfect form. Those powers are not
confined to one body, for I seem to believe that God
is everywhere and anywhere, and if he were a body,
it appears to me there would have been the resistance
offered to his penetration that there is to other
material things. Thus, for instance, I believe that
God can enter and at times is in my heart and
THE STATISTICS 195
body, and were he a person, he could not well be
divided up into bits. Thus to me the difference
between a personal being and an impersonal being
is that the former seems to confine God into a certain
space or body, where there are hands and feet, and
a head, etc., while an impersonal being has noth-
ing of the kind, except that it fills the universe and
is shapeless.
'' 3 It may be a remnant of youth, but anyhow,
every time I think of God there appears a vague
image of a man, with all members of the body, just
enormously large. The next instant, however, I
correct my image, and instead of that there appears
a kind of power (as if it were an expanse of gas)
floating in the air and pervading everything. The
image thus is only a convenient way in my mmd ot
thinking of God.
'' 4. The non-existence of a God would make me
give up the prayers which I say daily, and further
would prevent me from keeping the Sabbath
holy. ... As far as moral principles are con-
cerned, the existence or non-existence is immaterial."
VII. A woman, age 20.— Here is a radical non-
comformist, with very little respect for clinging
parasites seeking shelter and warmth within church
doors, .
" 3, I think of God merely as a term symbolizing
our feeling for right and wrong, developed from the
savage state when the struggle for existence alone,
without regard for any intellectual superiority of
man to beast, influenced the human race. I believe
that by God is [should be] meant the fine distmc-
196 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
tion of right and wrong which grows finer and finer
as the development of our intellect advances. . . .
I believe with Socrates that men would do right if
they knew enough and had been properly instructed
what a momentous thing is at stake if they choose
the wrong. Nobody who knows would choose the
wrong.
*' I do not think of God under any image but rather
as a universal influence. I believe it is within
human power to live quite independently of any
miraculous help of perhaps a supernatural influence,
such as most people conceive God to be. At least
my hope urges me thus to believe. It is the under-
lying cowardice, a remnant of the savage state of
the human race, that causes us to lay our troubles
at the door of a divine being. As man gradually
advances in civilization, he more and more casts off
this weakness, I think, and learns to stand on his
own feet with this one belief to reassure him — to
do right for right's sake and not for any reward
in heaven. To me the heavenly reward at the end
of life is another sign of cowardice in man, because
he does not dare to face the grave and likes to de-
lude himself and not face the actual state of affairs.
To this may be added conceit; for why is man so
much better than all other existing things that all
else should perish but he?'*
VIII. A man, junior, age 21. — This person thinks
of God as " real, actual skin and blood and bones,
something we shall see with our own eyes some
day " ! Doubts, however, have appeared ; he stands
THE STATISTICS 197
watching curiously, and, it seems, peacefully, their
advance.
. . '' 1. I have been brought up to think of God as
a personal being, a very real, actually existing
person, who watches over us all, treating us with
fortune or misfortune as we merit them. As time
goes on I feel myself growing skeptical as to the
fact that God sees everything, and has foresight;
but as yet the early belief taught me still makes me
believe that we are absolutely at his mercy — fixed
fate, you may call it.
" 3. Here again, due to the fact that I have given
so little actual thought, my earlier ideas still hold
clear. I think of God as the perfect being living
somewhere in the distance surrounded by the com-
pany of the blessed. He is all-powerful, but withal
magnanimous. I think of him as real, actual skin
and blood and bones, something we shall see with
our eyes some day, no matter what lives we lead
here on earth.
" 4. In an uncertain way, I feel that I am watched
over and taken care of by the Almighty, and if he
should cease to be and I should know of it, I should
feel like a ship without a pilot, not daring to do
much for fear of hidden reefs, and for fear of suf-
fering harm in meeting the many passing derelicts.
I have faith in the belief that he guides our foot-
steps, and I should falter greatly if the leader
should be taken away."
IX. A woman. — I quote this pathetic instance
because it is typical of a great many young people
who have begun life with a conception of God and
198 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
religious habits in disagreement with modern
knowledge.
"1. I believe in an impersonal God though I
should love to believe in a personal one. I believe
that there is some great force back of nature, a
great Mechanism or Governing Force — the Creator
of all things. I believe that after this God has
created us, there is no continuation of any personal
connection. Therefore, I cannot think of God as
a close personal Father, and when I do pray, I
always feel that the effort is futile, and consequently
when I am in trouble I get no spiritual comfort or
uplifting.
" 4. I am afraid the non-existence of God w^ould
make but little difference in my daily life. I pray
to Him every night, but it is always with a sort of
superstitious dread, — a fear that neglect of Him
may provoke anger. Yet my prayer is never help-
ful to me. Whenever I finish it I am always tor-
mented by the question. After all, is there really a
God, and does he hear what I am saying? If so,
why does he not let me know of his existence as I
have so often prayed to him to do. . . . ? "
X. A man, age 19. — ^He represents also, I think,
the condition of a large number of college students.
" 1. I have two beliefs in regard to God, which
are entirely inconsistent with one another. I see
the world about me and realize that a great will,
termed God, must have created it. At the time of
creation, I look upon him as a personal God. Now
it seems to me that God having set the machinery
working is letting it run its course and is taking
THE STATISTICS 199
absolutely no part whatsoever in the affairs of man.
This being the case, I believe in no God at present
but in nature and its works in which God has re-
vealed himself, and therefore I look upon Him now
as purely impersonal. Naturally I have never been
able to reconcile these beliefs.
** 3. God is to me a reverential word-image. It
has been dinned into me so much that God is All-
merciful, Omnipotent, and Just, that through a kind
of superstitious fear I make myself feel respectful
at the sight or sound of his name. I have abso-
lutely no visual image of God; if I thought he re-
sembled man I could hardly reverence him as I do
at present. I love to think of him as infinity or
nature, and quell my doubts by changing the subject.
" 4. If the non-existence of God were clearly
proved, I think it would make but slight difference,
if any, in my daily life. If the spirit of generosity,
justice, self-sacrifice, and honesty is inculcated in
one, the mere fact that the higher being is found to
be a myth could not destroy those characteristics.
My character would not undergo any reformation,
but I might discontinue the prayers I make to God,
which I do in a spirit of cowardice, for I fear to tell
myself openly there is no God . . . lest punish-
ment (which I do not believe will come because of
any belief of mine) may be visited upon me."
The first of the two final illustrations comes from
the only student in my records who gives evidence
of having been properly drilled in the official beliefs,
and who has not been shaken by the spirit of the
200 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
age. The second stands squarely upon a non-Chris-
tian foundation.
XI. A woman, age 20. —
" 1. Personal being, because our creed teaches us
that God exists in three persons.
" 3. I think of God as merciful, loving, just, all-
powerful Father, existing in three distinct persons
1 — Father, Son, and Holy ; Ghost — known as the
Trinity. The Trinity is a mystery, accepted as an
article of faith by some religions and not accepted
by others. I believe that the Father created us,
that the Son redeemed us, and that the Holy Ghost
sanctified us. I never think of God as one distinct
person ; at the mention of the name, the idea of God
in three persons comes into my mind.
" 4. The non-existence of God would make a de-
cided difference in my daily life. First of all, in the
m.orning I should never thank Him who has guarded
us safely during the night and I should not ask His
protection during the day. In a very short time,
I should be selffish, doing all I could for myself, for-
getting that I should give assistance to the needy
and overladen. All my work would be done for the
glory of man and not for the glory of the One who
has made us. At the close of the day, I should not
thank God for the many blessings bestowed on me
which enabled me to do my work in such a way that
it would be pleasing in the sight of God."
XII. A woman, age 18. —
*' 1. As an impersonal being.
" 2. I have never tried to formulate my somewhat
vague beliefs, but I mean that I do not believe in a
THE STATISTICS
201
Supreme Being who enters into and regulates the
course of our daily existence. There must be some
supreme force which regulates the universe as a
whole, but I cannot conceive of it as anything near
or in any way tangible.
" 4. As far as I can see, it does not in any way
determine my daily life."
We may now pass to the statistical results of the
investigation.
II. THE PERSONAL OR IMPERSONAL NATURE
OF GOD
The answers to the first question required careful
interpretation, for the words '' personal " and *' im-
personal " did not convey the same meaning to every
student. But, as the second question usually
brought out the significance ascribed to these terms,
their interpretations rarely presented any difficulty.
In chart I, "personal God'' has the meaning de-
fined on pages 173 and 174.
MEN
CHART I
WOMEN
n
BELIEVERS IN A
PERSONAL GOD
\BELIEVERS IN AN
^IMPERSONAL GOD
BELIEVERS IN BOTH
DOUBTERS
As many as 31 per cent, of the men, and only 11
per cent, of the women, conceive God as impersonal.
If the " doubtful " cases are added, the percentages
rise to 40.5 per cent, for the men, and to 15.7 per
202 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
cent, for the women. This greater variation from
tradition on the part of the men is one of the strik-
ing features of these records. It must be referred
on the whole, I think, to a stronger impulse to self-
afRrmation and freedom, and to a correlated lesser
need of affection and of moral support felt by the
men.'
Investigation B (see the following section) indi-
cates that the proportion of disbelievers in immor-
tality increases considerably from the freshman to
the senior year in college. Considered all together,
my data would indicate that from 40 to 50 per cent,
of the young men leaving college entertain an idea
of God incompatible with the acceptance of the
Christian religion, even as interpreted by the liber-
al clergy.
The conception of God varies frequently in the
same person as he passes from one mood to another.
These cases have been counted under '* Both Per-
sonal and Impersonal." Here are a few instances
of this henotheism : —
A woman, age 22. — " In an agitated frame of
mind I think of God as a personal father who is
ready to reward or punish, but generally I think
of God as a mass of forces, having certain effects
following from certain causes, the force that causes
us to do good brings with it its own reward, and
vice versaJ'
A man, age 21. — '* God to my mind is an imper-
sonal being, but whether for convenience or through
' See Chapter X, Individualism as a Cause of the Rejection
of Traditional Belief.
THE STATISTICS 203
sheer impotence I pray to him as a personal being.
I probably think of Christ when I pray. ... I
know I talk on both sides of the fence, but that is
just where I am, and until I get personality into
the being which I realize is impersonal, I must try
to find it. Experience teaches me it is the ' juste
milieu ' that is worth most."
A man, age 20.—'' I have never given this matter
serious attention. ... My two views of God in-
volve contradictions. . . . When I regard God as a
creator and ruler He is distinctly personal. But
when I believe that man works out his own salva-
tion, and that things need no superior mind to
direct them, then God seems to me impersonal. . . .
An impersonal being may be compared to an au-
tomaton.**
But whether the contradiction is realized or not
by the student, it never seems particularly to dis-
turb him. He thinks of God according to his prac-
tical needs, and if logic is considered at all, it is
in second place : —
A woman, age 23.—" I think of God as both a
personal and impersonal being. I think of him as
personal when I feel the need of some support out-
side myself; a sympathy and understanding which
no one else can give. I like to think of him as im-
personal at other times ; as a power like ether, which
is infused through everything."
A woman, senior.—'' When I am just thinking
about him in a speculative or philosophical way, I
generally think of him as impersonal, but for prac-
tical purposes I think of him as personal.
204 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
" By a personal God I mean the God I naturally
turn towards when I feel as if things were getting
too hard for me.''
A man, age 20. — " Knowing as little as I do of
the two sides, the personal and the impersonal, I
should always rely upon the personal nature of God
to bring me through."
The difference between these young people — the
flower of the land — who turn to God when they
need him, and the Zulus, who think of the spirits
of their forefathers only when they go to war,* is
that the savages never disbelieve in the existence of
these forefathers, whereas in their calm moments
college men and women do deny the God on whom
they call in the time of their need.
III. THE FORM, OR IMAGE, OR SYMBOL UNDER
WHICH GOD IS CONCEIVED
Two thirds of the men, and nearly half the women
disclaim any mental picture of God.' The larger
number of the remainder distinguish between image
or symbol, and reality. In a remarkably large num-
ber of cases, however, a description in sensory terms
is held to represent God adequately. That young
people having reached the mental development of
college students should think of God as " actual skin
and blood and bones, something we shall see with
* Max Muller: The Science of Religion; page 43.
' Of 290 men, 39 per cent, imagine God in human form. To
80 of these the form is a mere symbol; to 20, it is a reality;
while 7 find it impossible to decide whether the image repre-
sents the reality or is a symbol. Of 640 women, 34.5 per cent,
picture God in human shape. Of these, 166 state definitely
that the image is a mere symbol, 42 think is actually repre-
sents the reality, while 13 cannot decide.
THE STATISTICS 205
our eyes some day," is almost incredible; but the
evidence is compelling. Seven per cent, hold ap-
parently to a thoroughly anthropomorphic con-
ception of God : —
A man, age 21.—'' I imagine God in the same
form as any human being ; the same as man. I think
God and man are equal physically, or were equal
physically at one time but man has deteriorated.
God has all the feelings and passions of mankind.
He can love and hate, reward and punish, as a man
does."
A woman, senior. — " God has always been and
still is a personal Being for me. . . . By personal
I think I mean a being which has individuality, one
that has a definite shape, in the sense that it is dis-
tinguishable from empty space."
A woman, age 19.—'' I have always pictured him
according to a description in Paradise Lost as seat-
ed upon a throne, while around him are angels play-
ing on harps and singing hymns. The angels are
merely images which are not realities, while the fig-
ure of God stands for the reality."
A man, age 20.—" I think of God as a personal
being. A personal being would have a form that
you could see or touch, while an impersonal being
would have nothing in common with human beings."
The character of the imagery is frequently traced
to Sunday-school pictures, church windows, statu-
ary, and the like. The human shape is naturally
the most frequent form assumed by the representa-
tions ; occasionally, a flame, a sphere, a cloud, an all-
seeing eye, an immense voice, a soft wind, stand as
206 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
symbol. The following illustrations give only a very
inadequate idea of the variety and frequent oddity of
these images: —
A woman, freshman. — " I think of God as hav-
ing bodily form and being much larger than the
average man. He has a radiant countenance beam-
ing with love and compassion. He is erect and up-
right, fearless and brave."
A woman, sophomore. — " When I think of God
at all definitely I have in mind the image of a head,
with dark brown flowing hair and dark eyes ; below
the head the arms of the image are extended. They
seem wrapped in soft gray folds rather like clouds ;
the whole figure — which has no definite shape —
is draped in the same stuff which extends far down
around the earth."
A woman, sophomore, age 20. — " The image
under which I think of God is always confused in
my mind with the image which I have of the Saviour
. . . but the image of God is always a little the less
distinct of the two. I think that my image must
be very much like the reality."
A woman, sophomore, 19. — ** When God is men-
tioned, I always think of the picture of a man . . .
as king with all the insignia of royalty. I am not
sure as to what is the image and what the reality
in this image."
A woman, senior. — " God is like flame ... I do
not think that God is flame, . . . but flame is the
thing in human experience that comes nearest to my
conception of what God is."
THE STATISTICS 207
A woman, sophomore. — " The image in which I
see God most often is a sphere. Of course this is
quite distinct from my opinion as to the real image
in which God might appear, but the phrase, * God
is all in all,* makes me always feel that a sphere is
the only image in which God can appear in which
he would fit this."
To ascribe to God the female sex seems almost im-
possible to one nurtured in a Christian country, yet
even that idea is present in these records : —
A man. — '' Sometimes I have pictured to myself
a sort of beautiful woman . . . but the majority of
the time I do not think of God under any image
whatever."
A woman. — " I think of God almost as if he were
a second greater mother, to whom I can tell my
troubles. ... He has a certain vivid, mother-like
personality, yet I never see him under any definite
image. I feel him rather than see him.*'
The majority think images serviceable to them
and wish to preserve them. A few, however, con-
sider images debasing and would like to get rid of
them. Here are instances of each: —
A man, aged 18. — '' Although I do not think of
God as a person, I find satisfaction and a sense of
reality in endowing him with certain fine human
qualities. ... I generally think of God as a great,
benign, bright, splendid man.'
A womayi, age 18. — '' It makes God seem more real
and present to think of him as possessing human
form."
208 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
A woman.—'' My first image of God is seen
against my will and quite instinctively; invariably
the figure of a white-robed figure. I think it is a
woman, — the expression of the face is feminine, —
with lacerated brow and hands and feet. I know
that this image is due to the wickedly distorted
imagination of my childish training in religion. It
is wrong, untrue, degrading. The image which in
my better moments I can successfully form of God
is a different thing, but so indefinite I can hardly
describe it.''
A man, age 20. — '' I think of God somewhat as a
superhuman being — an enormous, majestic figure.
His face resembles Michael Angelo's Moses, but his
extremities don't seem to have any definite ending
like our hands and feet, but seem just to float off
into space and as it were to cover and protect the
whole world. It really seems to me to be a bar-
barian and somewhat heathenish way of imagining
anything so great and wonderful as God."
One might see in these quotations an argument
in support of Rousseau's contention that not until
the " age of reason " should God be so much as men-
tioned to children.
IV. GOD'S RELATION TO MAN
Believing in a personal God does not necessarily
mean holding those relations with him that consti-
tute religious life. The belief may be a mere echo
of tradition or a philosophical notion. In order to
find information on the importance to these students
of their religious ideas, one must turn to their
THE STATISTICS 209
answers to the last question, *' What difference
would the non-existence of God make in your life? "
The needs gratified by the belief in God may be
classified under three heads: need for explanation,
for righteousness, and for affective support.
A philosophical conviction of the existence of
God, i. e., a belief that gratifies intellectual curiosity,
is rare among these students. But God is very often
spoken of as the principle of righteousness, mani-
festing itself in us, or as the Being whose approval
or love makes it possible for us to triumph over
temptation and gives us hope of realizing our ideals.
Expressions like these are common : —
" God means everything to me in moral strug-
gles " ; *' Morality alone would not be sufficient for
inspiration and guidance in daily life " ; '* Trust in
God keeps me from worrying and makes me happy
and better " ; " God is a constant support for the
immediate task — without him I could not live";
" God is the highest perfection, all-knowing, all-
wise. . . . His non-existence would mean the non-
existence of hope, of any reason for preferring good
to evil." " If God had not existed for me, I should
have been a law-breaker and a criminal. Now if my
belief should change, I might pass beyond control."
The need for the love of an always adequate
friend plays a very great part in establishing belief
in God. The conviction that '' God is love " may
make unnecessary any further knowledge of him. In
that case he is described as " directly interested in
me," '' friend," '' comforter," '' sympathetic father,"
and every other attribute seems forgotten : —
210 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
A woman. — If God did not exist, " there would
be no one ... to whom we could go at all times
for sympathy in joys and sorrows."
A woman. — *' If there were no God I should seek
more sympathy from my friends."
A man. — " Some people apparently go through
life without bothering about God. Some one says:
* Is he necessary after all ? * The answer is that
such happy-go-lucky people know not the needs of
human nature; their wills are out of conformity
with the Logos. Every one who is ever brought face
to face with trouble realizes man's need and striving
after God, and almost to a man these people in mis-
fortune, I think, turn to a personal God."
Many admit that the universe is to them most
of the time godless; now and then, however, par-
ticularly in the hour of need, a sudden kaleidoscopic
change takes place, and God is felt hovering about
and filling the air with his protecting and loving
presence.
The greater self-reliance of the men and their
greater independence from tradition is again in evi-
dence in the answers to question four. Thirty-two
per cent, of the men and only seventeen per cent,
of the women declare that the non-existence of God
would make no difference at all in their lives. If
the " doubtful " cases are added the proportions
become 43 per cent, for the men and 22 per cent, for
the women.
In estimating the significance of these figures we
should remember that when one is brought face to
face suddenly with a question never before consid-
THE STATISTICS 211
ered, the natural tendency is to state the traditional
opinion. Now, the probable effect of the non-exist-
ence of God had perhaps never before been consid-
ered by these students. One may, therefore, take
it that the number of those who ascribe to God a
great influence upon them is larger than would truly
represent the facts. It should also be observed that
in several instances the affirmation of the great im-
portance of the existence of God is nothing more
than a logical deduction from the theoretical belief
that God is the creator and the upholder of the uni-
verse, and does not involve necessarily the existence
of warm personal relations with him.
Putting together those who think God's existence
of great importance to them, and those who ascribe
to it a small, or a merely occasional value, we get,
for the men, 57 per cent. The others (43 per cent.)
apparently think themselves morally independent of
the existence of God.
Are we to accept the opinion stated by these per-
sons as expressing correctly the value to them of the
belief in the existence of God? Obviously not.
The conviction that one could not get along in the
absence of certain material or spiritual possessions,
is very frequently proved false by later events. As
this is not the place to consider the value to hu-
manity, and in particular to these students, of the
belief in God, I shall remark merely that those who
think their belief in God essential have not had
occasion to test their conviction ; whereas those who
think themselves morally independent of the belief
and who also disclaim the belief, i. e., nearly the
212 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
whole of the 43 per cent., may be said to have demon-
strated their moral independence of the belief in
God. In the absence of satisfactory proof, one need
not consider as valid the opinion that the morality
of the unbelievers is derived from that of the believ-
ers.
The deepest impression left by these records is
that, so far as religion is concerned, our students
are groveling in darkness. Christianity, as a sys-
tem of belief, has utterly broken down, and nothing
definite, adequate, and convincing has taken its
place. Their beliefs, when they have any, are super-
ficial and amateurish in the extreme. There is no
generally acknowledged authority ; each one believes
as he can, and few seem disturbed at being unable
to hold the tenets of the churches. This sense of
freedom is the glorious side of an otherwise danger-
ous situation.
CHAPTER VIII
INVESTIGATION B : THE BELIEF IN IMMOR-
TALITY IN AN AMERICAN COLLEGE
Investigation A was concerned with the belief in
a personal God in nine American colleges and one
Normal School; investigation B deals exclusively
with the belief in immortality in one college of high
rank and of moderate size, whose students are di-
vided in their affiliation among all the important
Protestant denominations. It includes, in addition,
a few Roman Catholics. The spirit of this institu-
tion is assuredly as religious as that of the average
American college.
Ninety per cent, (seniors, 95.8 per cent; juniors,
97.7 per cent.) of all the students answered a set
of questions divided into three parts : the existence
of the belief, its influence upon the individual life,
and the grounds upon which the belief is held. How
this somewhat difficult performance was accom-
plished and what care was taken in order not to
prejudice the students, is explained in a foot-note.'
' The word questionnaire recurs so frequently in these
pages that I shall take the liberty of replacing it by its hrst
letter, capitalized. . .
If I give only percentages and no absolute figure, it is
merely in order to prevent the identification of the college.
The Q. were distributed by students to the rooms of all the
students in residence, on a Sunday morning, between nine
and ten o'clock, and were collected just before lunch on the
213
214 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
The most striking result of this inquiry is the
high percentage of believers in the lower classes and
the relatively high percentage of disbelievers in the
higher classes (see chart II). Only 15 per cent, of
the freshmen reject immortality, and 4 per cent,
are uncertain; while nearly 32 per cent, of the
juniors have given it up, and 8 per cent, more are
uncertain.
same day. A few were handed in later in the day, and a few
others on the next day. The non-residents received the Q.
on the following day, i. e., on Monday morning, on their ar-
rival at the college. They were requested to place their
answers during the day in a box provided for the purpose.
The professor who conducted the investigation had an-
nounced in several of the largest classes that all the students
of the college would be asked on Sunday morning to answer
a set of questions, but the subject of the investigation was
not disclosed. It was explained that they were held in igno-
rance in order to prevent discussion in advance. The great
desirability of having every one answer in order to make the
information gathered valuable for statistical purposes was
emphasized, and the directions printed at the head of the Q.
were read to them without comment. The students present
in each class visited were requested to pass on to the others
the information they had just received.
When it was found that a considerable number of fresh-
men and sophomores had failed to answer, an effort was
made to complete the statistics from these two classes. Stu-
dents of the upper classes interviewed the freshmen and the
sophomores and placed the Q. directly or indirectly, in the
hands of those who had not answered. It was ascertained
that most of these were absent from college when the ques-
tions were first circulated. A few explained that they had
not answered because they were too uncertain of their beliefs.
One said, " I know nothing at all about it," and another, " I
did not want to be bothered with these questions. No evi-
dence could be obtained tending to show that students who
entertained definite opinions had refused to answer. Ar-
rangements were made for the collection of the tardy an-
swers in a manner to preserve the students' incognito.
Among the students of the two lower classes who responded
to the second call, the proportion of disbelievers is slightly
larger than in the others. In table III all the answers are
included.
THE STATISTICS
215
CHART II
JUNfORS
5EN/0R6
BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY
FRESHMEN 60PH0M0RE6
I I BELIEVERS
DI5BELIEVER3
DOUBTERS
The seniors (24 per cent, of disbelievers and 6
per cent, of uncertain) stand nearer the lower
classes than the juniors. It will probably be sup-
posed that this fact indicates a return to a " saner "
view after a brief iconoclastic period; i. e., the
greater unbelief of the juniors will be taken to mark
the effect of a little knowledge, and the greater belief
of the seniors, the reaction that has set in with in-
creased maturity. I cannot accept that interpre-
tation. When the results were announced several
students, including both seniors and juniors, offered
in explanation of the fact mentioned the acknowl-
edged, exceptional independence and " intellectual
superiority of the junior class." The professors I
interviewed concurred in this judgment. Further-
more, Investigation C provides incontrovertible evi-
216 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
dence of a decrease of belief corresponding to an
increase of general mental ability and, perhaps, of
knowledge.
Not only do the younger students believe more
generally, but nearly all the believers accept the
doctrine of unconditional immortality. In so far
as that is the traditional Christian belief, this result
should have been expected of persons v^ho unthink-
ingly reflect prevalent opinions. We may note that
the junior class again distinguishes itself by a rela-
tively high proportion of believers in conditional im-
mortality (13 per cent, as against 4 per cent, for
the freshmen) . The seniors are also in this respect
nearer the lower classes than the juniors.
The effect of the loss of belief, as estimated by
these students, changes little as one passes from
Freshman to Senior. The great majority think it
would be considerable. Whatever change there is,
is in the direction of a decrease in the estimated
effect. If there is anything clearly disclosed by
the study of the origin and of the grounds for the
modern belief in immortality, it is that the strongest
factor of belief is the conviction that without con-
tinuation after death, this life would be morally in-
acceptable. Now, the statistics reveal the interest-
ing fact that a considerable number of believers do
not think the loss would have any influence upon
their lives; immortality is for them a fact without
vital significance. May we not then conclude that
those who believe either in conditional or in uncon-
ditional immortality and who, at the same time, de-
clare that the loss of the belief would leave them uiv
THE STATISTICS 217
concerned, are on the point of discarding that belief?
It is noteworthy that almost 25 per cent, of those
who cannot declare a belief in immortality, never-
theless desire it ; and that of these, four-fifths belong
to the two upper classes of the college. Since a
considerable number desire immortality, though they
do not believe, a decrease or a loss of desire may not
be made responsible for the decrease in the number
of believers. The increase in unbelief observed as
one passes from the younger to the older classes,
indicates rather the growing recognition of the in-
sufficiency of the foundation upon which the belief
stands.
Fifty-one per cent, of the freshmen, and forty-
nine per cent, of the sophomores, declare that they
have never assigned any reason for their belief in
immortality. That the younger students should
have failed more frequently than the older ones to
concern themselves with the reasons for their belief,
is not surprising; but that as many as 45 per cent.
of the believing juniors and 40 per cent, of the be-
lieving seniors should be in that naive situation,
may well cause some astonishment. These figures
would refute the accusation that some might be
inclined to direct against colleges for indoctrinating
their students. They indicate rather how distress-
ingly uninterested and ignorant these " cultivated '*
young people are regarding what is commonly con-
sidered a great religious issue. The preceding sec-
tion has shown that they are equally naive with
regard to the conception of God,
218 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
Very little significance may be attached to the
figures referring to the arguments " supporting "
or " establishing " the belief. I shall merely note
that four times out of five, they are said to ** sup-
port/* not to " establish," the belief, and that they
are in general agreem.ent with the statement made
in the first part of this book: the belief of these
students — when it has any conscious basis — rests
preponderantly upon moral arguments and upon
faith in a personal God.'
We should hardly have expected to find 35 per
cent, of the juniors and seniors in a Christian col-
lege unable to profess belief in immortality, and a
considerable additional number evidently indifferent
to it.
The knowledge we have gained as to the loss of
belief suffered by students leaves unanswerea the
momentous question of the later development of
their religious convictions. If we cannot now dis-
cover the beliefs these young people will entertain
twenty years hence, we can at least find out those of
the men and women who preceded them in college
and are now pursuing professional careers. This we
shall do in the next chapter.
* The first argument was named 71 times; the second, 43
times; the third, 168 times; the fourth, 112 times; the fifth,
180 times; the sixth, 170 times; the seventh, 70 times; the
eighth, 88 times.
Several students completed the list of arguments they found
in the Q. by adding the resurrection of Christ. My intention
was not to include every possible ground of belief, but to
seek information upon the influence of certain of them. Had
the resurrection of Christ been on the list, a large proportion
of the students would have doubtless marked it.
CHAPTER IX
INVESTIGATION C : THE BELIEF IN GOD AND
IN IMMORTALITY AMONG AMERICAN
SCIENTISTS, SOCIOLOGISTS, HISTO-
RIANS AND PSYCHOLOGISTS.
In this investigation, I was able to make use of
American Men of Science, a volume containing about
fifty-five hundred names, and of the membership
lists of the American Historical Association, the
American Sociological Society, and the American
Psychological Association. Any one familiar with
these lists will know that their standard of inclusion
is rather too low than too high ; it would be easy to
single out from the membership of the American
Psychological Association many persons who could
hardly be offended if denied the right to be called
psychologists. I say this in order that it may not
be imagined that this inquiry deals only with men
of very high achievements.
A study of statistics shows that a relatively small
number of the members of a group suffices to repre-
sent with a high degree of exactness the whole
group, provided the selection made be a chance se-
lection. The probable error resulting from such
limitation is, moreover, mathematically ascertain-
able. I have been assured by statisticians that re-
sults based on the whole list of fifty-five hundred
men of science and results based on five hundred,
219
220 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
would be to all intents and purposes the same. I
shall not weary the reader with a mathematical de-
monstration of the truth of this statement. A practi-
cal demonstration will, I am sure, advantageously
replace it. Such a proof might be attempted by car-
rying out two separate, but otherwise identical in-
vestigations, each involving five hundred persons
taken by a rule of chance from the volume named.
Should their conclusions coincide, they could be held
to be valid also for the entire fifty-five hundred men
listed in American Men of Science, This is precisely
the procedure I followed, i. e., I carried out sepa-
rately two identical investigations, each including
500 scientists. In every one of the other groups my
investigation included a larger proportion of the
whole than in the case of the scientists.
The chief difl^culty in the way of a statistical inves-
tigation such as the present one, is that not all those
addressed answer. This may introduce a type of
selection that vitiates results. In order to minimize
as much as possible this cause of error, I formulated
possible beliefs, and requested the recipients of the
Q. to mark with a cross all those that were true for
them, and I inclosed addressed and stamped enve-
lopes. A minimum of time and thought for answer-
ing was thus required. This procedure had the addi-
tional advantage of getting the answers in the same
forms.
It was not an easy task to formulate satisfactorily
for all those to whom the Q. was to be sent, the par-
ticular beliefs on which I wished the investigation
THE STATISTICS 221
to bear. Expressions in common use were to be pre-
ferred to philosophical and theological terms, for
these would not always have been understood or con-
strued in a uniform sense. As I was not concerned
with fine points in the conception of God, it was not
necessary to frame the statements so as to satisfy
the technical philosopher accustomed to consider a
tangle of problems where the ordinary man — and
in this respect, our scientists are ordinary — sees
but a relatively simple question. The adequacy of
the Q. for men of science, if not for philosophers,
will, I think, be admitted when the use I intended to
make of the answers is fully known.
Despite the measures taken to facilitate the task
of those addressed, it proved necessary to send out a
second pressing request, again with addressed and
stamped envelope. This was done not only for the
1000 men of science, but also for every other group.
The time elapsed between sending out the first and
second requests was not the same for each group.
When answers had practically ceased to come in, the
second request was dispatched. All answers re-
ceived later than one day after mailing the second
request, were counted as answers to it, although a
few of these were no doubt belated responses to the
first request. As I had not requested signatures, I
had to address again every person included in the
investigation, except those who had chosen to give
their names.
Friends told me that I should not succeed, and
they advanced various reasons. Most of their pre-
dictions remained unrealized. A number of those
222 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
addressed did indeed refuse to answer, and a few
made derogatory comments; but on the whole, the
members of every group found it possible to answer
to their own satisfaction — the philosophers ex-
cepted. I shall mention later the special difficulties
encountered in the attempt to extend the investiga-
tion to philosophers.
The many remarks written in the margin of the
returned Q. and the letters of those who would not,
could not, or thought they could not answer, have
frequently a real psychological interest. I shall take
occasion when discussing the causes of failure to
answer, to quote some of these utterances. They
will throw much light on the reception accorded to
the Q.
The Questionnaires sent to the two groups of five
hundred scientists follow. A slightly different set
of questions was sent to the second five hundred and
to the other groups. These changes are commented
upon below.
A STATISTICAL INQUIRY
{First Form)
Conflicting statements are confidently made re-
garding the prevalence among civilized Christian
nations of the belief in God and Personal Immortal-
ity. Nevertheless sufficient data are not extant to
support any opinion.
The accompanying questions are sent to 500 per-
sons taken by chance from those listed in American
Men of Science, in the hope of securing statistics
THE STATISTICS 223
valid for this whole group. The condition of success
is that all those addressed respond. No satisfac-
torily definite conclusions could be drawn if many of
those addressed refused or neglected to answer.
It will take you only a few seconds to make a mark
to the right of every statement true for you. Please
do it, if at all possible, on receipt of this paper and
return it in the inclosed stamped envelope. Your
answer may be anonymous.
A. CONCERNING THE BELIEF IN GOD.
1. I believe in a God in intellectual and affective
communication with man, I mean a God to
whom one may pray in the expectation of re-
ceiving an answer. By '' answer," I do not mean
the subjective, psychological effect of prayer.
2. I do not believe in a God as defined above
3. I am an agnostic
B. CONCERNING THE BELIEF IN PERSONAL IMMOR-
TALITY.
personal I. for all men
[conditional I, i. e., for those who
1. I believe m J ^^^^^ reached a certain state of de-
, velopment.
2. I believe neither in conditional nor in uncondi-
tional I. of the person
3. I am an agnostic
4. Although I cannot believe in P. I.,
[-intensely
I desire it ^moderately. . .
5. I do not desire P.I
224 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
(Second Form.)
A. CONCERNING THE BELIEF IN GOD.
1. I believe in a God to whom one may pray in the
expectation of receiving an answer. By
" a^iswer," I mean more than the subjective,
psychological effect of prayer
2. I do not believe in a God as defined above
3. I have no definite belief regarding this question. .
B. CONCERNING THE BELIEF IN PERSONAL IMMOR-
TALITY, I. E., THE BELIEF IN CONTINUATION
OF THE PERSON AFTER DEATH IN ANOTHER
WORLD.
1. I believe in
personal Immortality for all men . . .
conditional Immortality, i. e., Im-
mortality for those who have
reached a certain state of develop-
ment.
2. I believe neither in conditional nor in uncondi-
tional Immortality of the person in another
world
3. I have no definite belief regarding this question . .
'intensely
4. I desire personal immortality] moderately
not at all
REMARKS UPON THE CHANGES MADE IN THE SECOND
FORM OF THE Q. : —
1. I thought it advisable to leave out the words
" in intellectual and affective communication with
man '* which appears in A 1 of the Q. sent to the
THE STATISTICS 225
first division of 500 scientists. The meaning is suffi-
ciently indicated in the rest of the sentence. By sub-
stituting in the same statement *' I mean more than,"
for *' I do not mean," the intended meaning be-
comes clearer and the sense is not changed.
2. Instead of *' I am an agnostic," I wrote in the
revised Q., both in sections A and B, '' I have no defi-
nite belief regarding this question." The meaning
ascribed by my correspondents to these two formu-
lations will be discussed later.
3. The heading of section B was extended in the
second form by the addition of '' i. e., the belief in
continuation of the person after death in another
world." This addition excludes cases of belief in
transmigration at death in animal or human forms
living on the earth. Few answers if any could have
been affected by the change. A similar addition
was made to statement B 2.
4. In the first Q., the questions regarding desire
for immortality are addressed only to those who do
not believe; in the second Q., they are addressed to
all alike : believers, disbelievers, and doubters. The
answers made to B 4 by the first division are there-
fore not comparable with those made to B 4 by the
second division.
I. THE CAUSES OF THE FAILURE TO ANSWER
AND THE INTERPRETATION OF THE
QUESTIONNAIRE
As the attitude assumed towards the Q., and
the reasons for abstaining from answering were on
the whole the same in every group, I shall discuss
these matters now, once for all, and with especial
226 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
reference to the men of science. In the few in-
stances in which the figures and the extracts from
letters belong to other groups, I shall indicate their
origin.
The reader will find it necessary to remember that
in the Questionnaire all the statements under A refer
to God, and those under B to immortality. A 1 is
a statement of belief in a personal God ; A 2 one of
disbelief in that God; A 3 one of agnosticism or
doubtfulness. Similarly, B 1 is a statement of be-
lief in personal immortality, either unconditional or
conditional ; B 2 one of disbelief ; B 3 one of agnos-
ticism or doubtfulness.
A. THE FAILURE TO RETURN OR TO MARK THE
QUESTIONNAIRE
Almost one quarter of those addressed either
returned a blank Q. or did not return it at all.
This is a considerable percentage, and were we alto-
gether in the dark as to their cause, these failures
would lower considerably the value of the statis-
tics. But, thanks to the remarks of many who re-
fused to answer, and also to certain other data, we
are able to disregard some of these blanks or failures
to answer as not affecting the investigation, and to
classify at least approximately a considerable num-
ber of the remainder.
Those who did not return the Q. amount to not
quite 10 per cent. ; of these, an indeterminable
number may be put down as dead, or critically ill,
or absent. The failure of these to answer may be
considered as not affecting the statistics, since there
THE STATISTICS 227
is no reason to think that the dead, the critically
ill, and the absent belong entirely or predominantly
to a particular class of believers.
Turning to the 14.7 per cent, whose Q. were re-
turned blank, we observe first that these are not all
to be regarded as expressions of unwillingness to
answer. Altogether 22 of these were reported as
dead, and 26 as not found, away, or ill. The failure
of these to answer leaves the investigation un-
affected. There remain 99 of the blank Q., that
is about 10 per cent, of the total number sent out.
A large number of these fall into more or less exact-
ly defined categories, which I shall now characterize
and illustrate.
There are many people who do not know what
you mean unless you speak in terms of weight and
measure. How must the devout believer who " lives
with God " be startled when he encounters fellow-
men like some of my correspondents. Two greater
scientists wrote, for instance: —
" I cannot answer these questions. I do not know
what they mean. I have no interest in them, and
can hardly conceive of any one wishing to know."
" I have not the slightest desire to answer these
questions, either to myself or to any other person."
One person jeered at me for expecting " scientific
men " to answ^er questions *' not accessible to proof,"
questions that are *' not matters of knowledge." I
gaped in amazement on reading the two following
stout pronouncements : —
** As a scientist my entire attention is directed to
228 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
matters accessible to proof. Neither of your ques-
tions belong to this category."
" How is it possible for a sane student to answer
these questions? They do not deal with phenomena
or material which we can investigate. I believe in
everything that is."
Well, after all, beliefs, disbeliefs, and doubts exist,
they are real; and they come into existence without
cause no more than physical phenomena. Therefore,
seeing that religious beliefs move men to actions of
vast consequence, let the psychologist continue to
busy himself with them. I have fair hopes that some
of these narrow minded scientists may be brought to
see, perhaps by means of this investigation, that
there is another real world open to scientific study
beside the one they acknowledge; and that in fact
they themselves, as well as everybody else, live in
that world.
A certain number did not answer because they
were too completely '* at sea." ** My views are too
vague to be of any value," says one of these. Anoth-
ei^ excuses himself on the ground that he " has not
investigated the subject." Another who has given
long hours to considering these problems, states that
his opinions " are too indefinite to justify their pre-
sentation in the categorical form inquired after." It
would seem that the person who '' neither believes
nor disbelieves," but rejoices ** in a suspended judg-
ment," would be in a position to mark A 3 and B 3.
He did not do so, however. '' I have my doubts,"
writes one who also prefers not to mark A 3 and B 3,
" about many of these things, and believe that hyp-
THE STATISTICS 229
notism and superstition are the basis of much we be-
lieve."
Why did not the person who declares himself a
member of the Christian church and answers that he
'' tries to live up to its teachings/' mark the Q. ?
Are we to infer that he does not accept the dogma of
his church, and merely endeavors to live up to its
practical teaching?
What a sorry figure this man cuts : —
" I am a Presbyterian by heredity and by profes-
sion. I have no wish to be considered ambiguous or
a hypocrite ; neither have I any wish to leave the be-
liefs of my fathers. I wish my faith could be as
simple as that of some of my relatives who are now
dead. If I had children I would have a responsibili-
ty that fortunately I do not now carry. I must admit
there are many things that I cannot accept as
proven."
The opposition between feeling or belief and
knowledge appears frequently as a source of diffi-
culty in marking the Q. An historian writes : —
'' I have found it impossible to decide how far the
beliefs as stated were the result of my own definite,
intellectual conclusions based on a fair amount of in-
vestigation, and how far they were affected by a
very conscious aversion to breaking with my ances-
tral past. We are doubtless all conscious of wide di-
vergence in belief from the beliefs held by oui^ par-
ents. Yet I personally hesitate to commit myself
irrevocably on paper to a statement to this effect."
This person is certainly right in conjecturing that
her hesitancy to break with the past is somewhat
230 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
widely shared. The result is, of course, to swell the
number of believers by the addition of many who are
not really convinced.
An unusually subtle and complex attitude, involv-
ing more than the opposition of belief and knowl-
edge, is revealed in this very interesting letter of a
psychologist. I do not know what part in it should
be ascribed to downright aboulia, and what to a legit-
imate unwillingness to forego the least particle of
freedom by pinning oneself down to a formulated be-
lief.
" I owe you an apology for not answering your
questions before this. ... I seem to find no question
to which I should care to give a categorical answer.
Will you let me say, however, that the questions
seem to me to trench upon an area which I find in a
state of flux a considerable part of the time? They
refer to what in my own case I seem to regard as a
protean element of consciousness, which like water
is now fluid, now a crystallized solid, and now an im-
perceptible vapor. This element of consciousness, I
somehow feel it is important not to reduce to cate-
gories, not even to that of indefiniteness or to that
of mysticism. . . .
*' In these days of the new ecclesiasticism, the ec-
clesiasticism of science, when the so-called applica-
tions of science are actively engaged in formulating,
fixing, mechanizing, institutionalizing, and stand-
ardizing, I feel, though perhaps at the risk, in this
instance, of totally misunderstanding the purpose of
a serious piece of scientific research, that one may
silently persist in trying to live, part of the time at
THE STATISTICS 231
least, in or with the fluid medium of shifting belief —
now melting and evanishing quite, now precipitating
afresh, now firm as a rock on which to stand — of
the unsettled and problematic character of which be-
lief science has made us all the more certain, while
helping to free us from bondage to externals."
I sent the writer questions in another form, hop-
ing that now at least he would be able to answer.
I got in reply this letter :
" I find it quite disconcerting to seem to be so dis-
obliging as still not to answer your Statistical In-
quiry. I have tried to give what I could of my rea-
sons for my reluctance in my previous letter. I am
not sure that I can completely oif accurately account
for this reluctance. Very likely I cannot account
for it. I regret it none the less, for I would gladly
cooperate with you in your investigation ; but I seem
to be profoundly inhibited for some reason, or lack
of reason."
I should have been surprised and sorry to find
among scientists many instances of refusal to answer
because of the '* privacy " (signatures were not asked
for) or the " sacredness " of religious beliefs. Only
six, perhaps, belong to the suspicious class of those
who try to persuade themselves and others that mat-
ters of faith are too sacred to be recorded for a sci-
entific purpose : —
" I feel that these matters are of a personal and
private nature, and ... I do not care to express
myself."
" Those are matters of individual concern only and
232 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
a statistical study of them is unnecessary and use-
less."
I shall venture to think that the weightier reason
for the dislike displayed by these ''scientists " for
research in religious life, is often that given in
the second clause of the following sentence which I
italicize : '* Those questions are of too personal a
nature to permit of public expression — even were it
possible for me to express or formulate my belief."
Several are convinced that the beliefs in question
are not matters of knowledge, but of faith, or of
'' spirit," and therefore they prefer not to answer : —
" Ideas of a God are to me not matters of scientific
knowledge but of faith ; and a scientific examination
of faith does no especial good, I therefore prefer
not to answer."
Again, in cases of this last sort, one cannot escape
the suspicion that the excuse given covers some
other, more real impediment. Why should faith in a
personal God and in personal immortality prevent
one from stating that faith? Have these believers
forgotten the noble and brave example of prophets
and apostles who proclaimed their faith even in the
face of an angry world? I suspect that had these
persons possessed a real and lucid belief, they would
have responded to my provocative questions with the
quickness of powder to the match. They would have
burst out in exclamatory sentences as others of my
correspondents did: —
" Of course, every Christian does."
" I have positive knowledge of God by actual ex-
perience."
THE STATISTICS 233
" I not only believe firmly in a personal God, but
feel certain of his existence.'*
Closely related to those who will not debase
" faith " and " things of the spirit " by utterance, is
the position of one who informs me briefly that she
will not analyze her religious feelings. Why not?
Probably because of a fear that clear-eyed contem-
plation might entail an irreparable loss. A sociolo-
gist confesses that he *' almost fears to reason "
about these topics. When he attempts it, he " can-
not reach the conclusion that a personal God watch-
ing over us all and ready to listen to and grant our
petitions exists " ; but " in moments of exaltation or
of sorrow one does not reason about God, but in-
stinctively gives thanks or prays for help and com-
fort.'' If this shifting attitude is rare among men
of trained minds, it is not infrequent in others. I
have had occasion elsewhere to comment upon the
effect of feeling and emotion in bringing to the fore
old attitudes and beliefs. When thinking is inhib-
ited, the instinctive, the habitual, the traditional get
the upper hand.
Pragmatic principles, in absolute contempt of ob-
jective truth, are expressed in several communica-
tions. I suppose that perfect worldly wisdom con-
sists in believing in God w^hen advantageous, and in
disbelieving in him w^hen belief is disadvantageous.
Some of my correspondents have attained to this
perfection. Here are the more striking instances of
this attitude ; they refer to the belief in God : —
" Sometimes, yes ; sometimes, no, according to my
temporary needs."
234 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
'' Philosophical discussion of religious matters
often affords opportunities for intellectual athletics
and mental relaxation, but there is comfort in the be-
lief of the existence of an Almighty without any con-
sideration as to the details of such a belief. . . .
Such beliefs do not and should not interfere with the
efficiency of man, or prevent his working out his
own salvation in worldly matters."
" Strong belief, and absolutely no knowledge," is
admitted by a good many, particularly with refer-
ence to immortality. A sociologist, for instance,
who unlike the preceding marked both A 1 and B 1,
writes, ** I have no scientific reasons to back my be-
lief. I believe in immortality because I like it."
But those who, despite absence of all knowledge,
behave as if they believed, are not all so outspoken.
Sometimes a tone of helplessness and even of shame
creeps into the confession: —
'' I certainly do not believe in a God defined as
above, and yet I use him sometimes as though I did
— as though it were a useful custom left over from
childhood." (The writer marked A 2 and B 2.)
" Do I believe in a personal God and immortality?
If you mean completely and always, certainly not.
Practically, I sometimes act as if I believed. There
is often definite prayer but no sense of warmth or
close contact." (From a psychologist.)
A sociologist who answers A 2, " Intellectually,
no," makes the following marginal note : " In crises
a traditional belief recently appeared which aston-
ished me. I felt that my prayer would be answered.
My reasoning is freer than my living, my living than
THE STATISTICS 235
my tradition. I have never succeeded in getting
away entirely from the dogmatic fear-teaching of
parents and Sunday-School."
A few among scientists and also among the other
groups, refrained from marking any statement, be-
cause the questions ** are so phrased that it is prac-
tically impossible for thinkers of a certain very ad-
vanced but yet quite conservative school to answer
them without creating false impressions." Their
" real belief is neither expressed by an affirmative
nor by a negative answer." The same complaint is
voiced by an historian, thus, " The questions relating
to God are so formulated as to make it impossible
for me to formulate my belief. I would say ' no ' to
the first two questions. But / have a belief." Oth-
ers say, similarly : " I fear that I could not state
the truth as I see it by merely answering this Q." ;
or, " I do believe in a God and in prayer, but not as
you have outlined it"
These persons rebelled against the limitations im-
posed by my statements upon the expression of their
philosophico-religious opinions. They assumed that
I wished to find out what they believed, and com-
plained that marking the statements submitted to
them would not convey a sufficient idea of their own
opinion. As a matter of fact, I was interested
merely to discover whether or not they held the par-
ticular beliefs formulated in the Q. What else they
might believe, fell outside my present concern. I
asked, " Do you believe this or not? " The answer
these persons made is, in effect, "We cannot reply
because we believe something else" ! This illogical
236 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
objection derived strength, I think, from a fear that
the denial of God as defined, would class them with
" degraded " materialists. That fear has little
foundation, for it is well known that to-day the de-
nial in question is as likely as not to point to an
idealistic view of life. The conclusions of this book
will show what inference I draw from these statis-
tics.
B. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE DEFINITION OF GOD
AS CONTAINED IN THE QUESTIONNAIRE
There remain to be considered a number of cases
of misunderstanding A 1 which either prevented
marking or led to an erroneous marking of the state-
ments concerning God.
In a long letter a physical scientist declares that
the meaning of the expression " answer to prayer '*
is not clear to him and begs permission to ask
whether in the Q. it means : —
'* (1) That the specific thing or change among
things prayed for shall follow the prayer;
" (2) That the specific thing or change prayed
for, or something which from the point of view of the
petitioner is equally desirable, shall follow the
prayer; or
" (3) In addition to the occurrence of (1) or (2)
above, the offering of prayer is a sine qua non of the
occurrence of (1) or (2) ; or
" (4) Has the term some meaning not covered by
the above?"
The meaning of A 1, has been obvious to nearly all
my scientific correspondents. They have under-
stood that the specific thing, or change prayed for.
THE STATISTICS 237
or something equally desirable following the prayer,
does not constitute an answer in the sense intended,
unless this " thing " or '' change " he the result of
the will of a superhuman Being moved by the jnayer.
The seriousness of this gentleman's desire " to re-
turn a useful answer " may be measured by the cir-
cumstance that he does not say which one of the sev-
eral meanings he takes the trouble to distinguish is
the one he favors. We may be assured, however,
that he is not in a position to mark A 1.
Another physical scientist formulates briefly his
beliefs and leaves it to me to place him in the cate-
gory to which he belongs. He writes : —
" You ask if I believe in God, and I say, ' Cer-
tainly,' for otherwise I should be simply asserting
my own comprehension of the world and life. Such
claims I would be very far from making. . . . Sec-
ond, you ask if I believe in a God who upsets natural
law at the request of prayer. I should say, * Cer-
tainly not.' "
At this point we come to the cause of the writer's
unwillingness to mark any of the statements under
A. He disclaims any right to assert '' that the ex-
pression of the desire of any individual could not
possibly have any effect upon the course of events.
Such expression certainly does have effect upon the
course of events since one's own feelings and pur-
poses are only a part of that course." The writer
is evidently right in this last affirmation. But since
the Q. expressedly includes effects of prayer due
to the action of a divine Being, moved to action by
prayer, why did he not mark A 2 ?
238 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
A third physical scientist, who also did not an-
swer, wrote: —
" I should be pleased to learn in some detail just
what your first question means. Was it to ask if I
believe in a material God who would or might alter
or revoke natural law and thus fulfill an expressed
request for some material thing which I might desire
or request? If so, my answer would have been defi-
nitely, ' No.' "
My answer to this correspondent ran somewhat as
follows, " The statements of the Q. define neither
God nor the kind of request answered by him, as ma-
terial or spiritual. Why, then, construe in the sense
of material? Any kind of response proceeding
from the will of a God moved to action by man's
supplication or desire, falls under * answer ' as de-
fined in A 1."
Two other scientists, and several belonging to
other groups, refrained from marking, but declared
a belief in a God who does not interfere with his own
daws. And six scientists — I shall not ispeak of
similar instances in the other groups — marked A 1
although they also reject God's intervention in nat-
ural laws. They say, *' The answer is always
through the mind of man and never * breaks ' a
natural law." Or, " I do not believe in any Inter-
ruption or subversion of known laws of nature. I do,
however, believe in a supreme being." Or, " I should
not expect an answer involving any upset of the es-
tablished order of the physical universe."
Did these six scientists mark correctly in marking
A 1? Any one thinking that because of the action
THE STATISTICS 239
of prayer upon God's will, something will happen
that would not otherwise take place, marks correctly
when making a cross opposite A 1. Some of these
scientists seem to be of the opinion of the theologian
who teaches that " God can excite new centers of
association of ideas, can arrest old associations, all
intellectual activity being subservient to feeling.
He can produce whatever doctrines and ideas He
wishes." ' The distinction between the relation
maintained by God with the physical and with the
psychical world is not infrequent among people of
some culture. Such is probably the opinion of the
person who holds that ''the answer is always through
the mind of man."
Detailed acquaintance with the orderliness of
physical nature tends to dispossess God of that
realm. Will not familiarity with mental and social
laws have the same effect with regard to the psychic
world? The statistics of beliefs of the psychologi-
cal and sociological groups give, it seems, an affirm-
ative answer to this query. For the psychologist, the
mental life is as completely within the realm of law
as the physical ; therefore, if the existence of law is
a bar to God's action, he is excluded from interven-
ing in the psychical life of man as well as in the
physical universe.
Are we to suppose that all those who marked A 1
without comment accept the possibility of divine in-
tervention both in the physical and in the mental
' H Bois • Infipiration and Revelation; Unpublished Lec-
tures to Theological Students: 1902-1903. Quoted by E. Pon-
seve, in Experience et Acte de Foi; a Doctors Dissertation;
Valence; 1905. Pages 63, 64.
240 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
world ? Most of them very probably do, but a num-
ber limit God's action to the psychical world.'
C. THE INTERPRETATION OF A 2 AND B 2 *
These statements do not necessarily imply a con-
viction of the non-existence of God and of immor-
tality. They may mean merely the absence of the
" Regarding the term " subjective," I must observe that one
psychologist interpreted that term in the strict sense. He
v/rote, " I have this belief (A 1) on the basis of personal ex-
perience which I can interpret in no other way. But do you
not see that the man who does not believe in God, but holds
to the strictest form of the mechanical rather than the
sipiritual theory of the world, is above all other logically
bound to hold that such tremendous facts as the constant
prayers of hundreds of millions cannot possibly fail to have
objective effects?" The effects the writer calls here ** ob-
jective," are the results of prayer which pass beyond the
praying individual affect other persons and which, neverthe-
less, are not due to the action of a divinity acting in conse-
quence of the prayer. Prayer exerts, incontrovertibly, such
objective effects. But they are usually included in the ex-
pression " subjective effect of prayer," as currently used. In
any case, statement A 1 implies clearly that the " effect "
must come from God, at the instigation of the petitioner.
If we suppose that this writer admits only the strictly sub-
jective and the objective psychological effects of prayer, and
not the determination of God's will by it, he belongs with
those who do not believe A 1. Errors resulting from this
misunderstanding of the meaning given to " subjective " in
the Q., would have undoubtedly increased the number of the
believers. I do not think, however, that many persons took
the word in its strict signification. As a matter of fact, the
present instance is the only one which has come to my notice.
I am not sure that, except in the case of the psychologrists,
the addition to A 1 of the word " objective " (the statement
of the Q. would then have read, " I mean more than the sub-
jective and objective psychological effects of prayer ") would
not have caused more trouble than its omission. I find even
my philosophic correspondents writing " subjective effects,"
when obviously they intend to include what the person cited
means by " objective."
" A. 2 : I do not believe in God as defined above. B 2 : I
believe neither in conditional nor in unconditional immortal-
ity of the person.
THE STATISTICS 241
conviction of their existence. In that case state-
ments A 2 and B 2 have approximately the same
meaning as statements A 3 and B 3 (agnosticism or
absence of definite belief). But, although the Q.
asks that every statement ''true for you" be marked,
only a small percentage of those who marked 3,
marked also 2. One may, therefore, probably re-
gard the majority of those who marked A 2 and B 2,
and not also A 3 and B 3, as desirous of doing more
than affirm the absence of the belief in God and im-
mortality, they may be taken to have intended to ex-
press positive belief in their non-existence.
Readers may ask themselves why I did not formu-
late statements which would have separated more
definitely those who merely lack the beliefs expressed
in A 1 and B 1, from those ready to affirm their fals-
ity. But can a sharp line of demarcation be drawn
between these two attitudes? Evidently not; the
terms, belief, unbelief, doubt, uncertainty, are sus-
ceptible of endless gradation. 'The questions do
not provide for degrees and intensities," complains
one of those who returned a blank Q. This is un-
fortunately true, but in attempting to refine, I
should probably have made matters worse. As a
matter of fact, few were seriously troubled by the
indefiniteness of these terms, and my purpose was
as well, perhaps better served by the statements of
the Q., as by any others; for, the persons who could
affirm a belief in the two great propositions of
Christianity are actually separated from those who
could not ; and, in addition, those who were willing
to do more than affirm absence of belief and doubt,
242 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
were enabled to do so, and usually did so, by mark-
ing A 2 and B 2, without marking also A 3 and B 3.
Something of the variety of attitudes and the
fluidity of the meanings which should be covered by
a theoretically perfect Q. is suggested in the follow-
ing extracts from two letters written by eminent
phychologists : —
'' Question 3 really represents my position, which
would rather be agnostic in the purely negative sense
of the word, not the positive and aggressive sense.
My feeling is that for all I know, there may be a
personal God who answers prayers, and there may
be a personal immortality. The surface facts do
not seem to me to favor either, but I have been
wrong so many times in my life that I am emphat-
ically not ready to deny the possibility of either.
What the possibilities of the universe are, is surely
one of the things I do not know."
" These things have for the past several years
become so entirely indifferent to me — save as mat-
ters for psychological study — that I find it dif-
ficult to answer the questions. Ten years ago I
should have said I do not believe — I am an agnostic
(possibly with reservations as to precise definition)
— I do not believe — I do not desire. Now it seems
to me that, while there is no chance of my ever be-
lieving or desiring, to say that I do not believe and
do not desire is to make too positive a statement.
What I mean is that, if I could bring myself to any
serious consideration, I might decide (and probably
should decide) No, again; but serious consideration
strikes me as waste of time; these things are just
THE STATISTICS 243
non-existent for me; I can no more say: ' I do not
desire immortality ' than I can say, ' I do not desire
to reign in hell.' I may say, ' I do not believe in
God ' is a thing I should never think of saying, be-
cause it implies some interest in the question."
D. THE MARKING OF A 3 AND B 3 * IN THE FIRST AND
IN THE SECOND FORMULATION OF
THE QUESTIONNAIRE
Those who marked A 3 and B 3 occasionally ex-
plained their meaning by phrases such as these:
" Neither belief nor disbelief " ; '' In the dark " ; '^ I
mean merely the absence of belief " ; ''I have no
sufficient knowledge of it." Three knew that ** it
is impossible for any one to know anything about
such matters." An attitude representative of a large
number of '* agnostics " is expressed in these words,
*' I believe in a spiritual life here and now. The
trend of the universe is towards the higher and
better. Righteousness here is sufficient for me. Of
God and the future I am ignorant. The best im-
pulses of man are not meaningless. I am content,
I believe, not to know where evidence is lacking."
It appears very clearly from the answers that
A 3 in the first Q. was marked by agnostics in the
exact sense of the term, and also by persons who,
without denying the possibility of knowledge, are
themselves in doubt. It is equally clear that in the
revised Q., A 3 was marked not only by persons with
indefinite views, but also by genuine agnostics. I
* A 3 and B 3, in the first Q. : " I am an a^ostic "; in the
second, " I have no definite belief concerning this question."
244 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
have therefore put all the answers to A 3 and B 3
under the double head " Agnostics and Doubters."
E. THE INTERPRETATION OF '' PERSONAL''
IMMORTALITY
It was not intended that believers in continuation
after death without preservation of the conscious-
ness of identity should mark B 1. If any have, the
number of disbelievers recorded in the tables is
smaller than it should be.
The anticipation of continued individual existence
without the preservation of the consciousness of
identity satisfies neither the desire for justice nor
that for the perpetuation of love and friendship ; it is
not the immortality for which the human heart com-
monly yearns.
F. SUMMARY OF THE DISCUSSION OF THE FAILURES
TO MARK THE QUESTIONNAIRE AND OF
ITS INTERPRETATION
The 14.7 per cent, of scientists who returned blank
Q., include eight per cent, who for physical reasons
could not answer (death, severe illness, or ab-
sence) , or else gave some clue to their opinions.
The utterances of most of the latter are sufficiently
explicit (as the reader may have judged for himself
by the preceding quotations) to show that their be-
liefs, were they entered upon the statistical tables,
would increase rather than decrease the proportion
of non-believers in A 1.
A similar statement is true regarding the part of
the Q. dealing with immortality. The number of
those who marked B 2 and B 3 is less than the whole
THE STATISTICS 245
number of those who do not believe in B 1. Why, for
instance, did the person who wrote the following
refrain from marking any of the statements on im-
mortality? " I have no opinion and do not care to
the extent of striving to understand the unknow-
able." He could, it seems, have marked B 3. An-
other, who also refrained from marking the Q., de-
clared the subject " an open one." Why, then, not
mark the affirmation of '' no definite belief " made
in B 3? The same question may be asked of others
who make similar remarks. One person who calls
himself a '' materialist," did not mark the Q. I may
add that only once did that term appear in the cor-
respondence occasioned by this inquiry.
As to the failure to return the Q. (10 per cent.),
an indeterminate number is to be ascribed to death,
to critical illness, or to absence. The information
derived from the comments of those who returned
but did not mark the statements, and in particular
of those who answered only at the second request
(see the discussion of table XXIII), indicates that,
had the remainder of this 10 per cent, answered,
the proportion of disbelievers would very probably
have been increased.
The proportions of Q. not returned, or returned
blank in the other groups, will be mentioned in the
proper place. In every case, except that of the his-
torians, they will be found to be less, and in some
cases very much less, than for the scientists.
The foregoing survey of the causes of failure to
answer should not leave us under the impression that
on the whole the Q. was frowned upon. After all,
246 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
the proportion of those who raised objections is
small. Two of these are conspicuous for their pic-
turesque language :
" A man must be lacking a job or a mind to go
into this business/*
" This is a lot of damned rot."
Strange as it may seem, these two persons marked
the Q. ; the first A 1 and B 1; the other, A 2 and
B 2. A large number wrote approvingly and con-
gratulated the author upon having undertaken this
research; the great majority complied with the re-
quest for information and otherwise remained silent.
In the main, the reception accorded to this inquiry
and its results should make impossible in the future
the rough and ready adverse judgment which many
are in the habit of formulating as to the possibility
of obtaining, by the questionnaire method, definite
and reliable knowledge upon questions such as those
under investigation here.
The chief result I hoped to achieve by means of
the statements of part A of the Q. should now be
evident. I wanted to separate the believers in a
personal God from all others, even from those who,
rejecting that belief, entertain neverthless a spir-
itual conception of ultimate reality.
In the sphere of practical religion, gods are de-
fined by the attributes implied in their worship.
Now, the worship of the God of the Christian
Church, in all its branches, implies a Being in direct,
affective, and intellectual communication with man.
No one who has ever entered a Christian Church
and opened a Prayer Book, whether Roman Cath-
THE STATISTICS 247
olic, Protestant, or Unitarian, can fail to know that
v/hen both the physical and the psychical world are
conceived as subject to immutable laws, not subject
in any degree to human desires acting upon a Being
able to gratify them, Christian liturgies and hymn-
ologies have lost their object. In such a world,
prayer for rain, for protection from sin, for pardon ;
songs of praise and adoration — these, and nearly
everything else in the church services, have be-
come atrophied survivals of means of salvation once
potent.
I am well aware that there are those who say,
" No ; these things have not lost their meaning, they
have assumed another meaning." Why should
earnest men quibble? The practical question raised
by this research is precisely whether those for whom
these " things ** have changed their meaning, as they
actually have, should nevertheless strive to preserve
the established forms of worship.
II. THE SCIENTISTS
This part of Investigation C is based upon an-
swers received from 1000 persons chosen by a rule
of chance from American Men of Science. It is
separated, for a reason already indicated, into two
divisions of 500 each; and these again fall into two
subdivisions including 300 persons of lesser and 200
of greater distinction.' Every other group in in-
' The 300 less eminent men of the first division were se-
lected by taking the first name on every other page of Amer-
ican Men of Science; and in addition, as this did not pro-
248 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
vestigation C was likewise divided into " lesser" and
" greater " men. In one division of the scientists, I
kept separate the answers of the physical, from
those of the biological scientists, and was thus able
to show what influence training in these sciences has
upon the belief in God and immortality.
The sciences and the occupations represented in
the first division are indicated in chart III. The
upper figure in each square of the table refers to the
vide the desired number, the last name on every fifteenth
page. In case one of the names so found was starred, the
first unstarred name following, or preceding was taken in-
stead. The 200 eminent men were found by taking every
fifth starred name in the volume. Since there are in the
whole directory 1000 starred names, this method produced
the desired 200 names.
In the second division, the 300 less eminent men were
found by taking the second name on every other page, and
the name before the last on every fifteenth page. When a
starred name, or a name which had been used in the first
division was encountered, it was replaced by the nearest
available name. The 200 eminent men were found by taking
every fifth starred name, beginning at the end of the volume.
I left my correspondents in ignorance of the distinction
T was making in lesser and greater men. A slight difference
in the size of the Q. was used as a means of keeping separate
the answers from the two classes. The answers from the
physical scientists were kept distinct from those of the biolo-
gists by a difference in the printing of the Q.
The choice of the 1000 starred names in A^nerican Men of
Science was made by Dr. James McKeen Cattell with the co-
operation of twelve of the most distinguished men in each
science. From these men. Dr. Cattell asked and received, for
each science, twelve lists containing a definite number of
names arranged in the order of their distinction, according to
the opinion of the makers of the lists. From the twelve lists
in each science. Dr. Cattell compiled, according to a method
described in an Appendix to American Men of Science, the
lists of names starred in that volume.
THE STATISTICS 249
lesser, the lower one to the greater men. It ap-
pears that college and university professors make
up over 60 per cent, of the total. The next two
larger groups are of men employed by the govern-
ment (12 per cent.) , and in industries (11 per cent.) .
The Beliefs in God and Immortality. — In the two
divisions of scientists taken together, the believers
in God (A 1) amount to 41.8 per cent, of the num-
ber of those who answered. If we put together the
disbelievers, (41.5 per cent.) , i. e., those who marked
A 2, and the agnostics or doubters, i. e., those who
marked A 3, we get 58.2 per cent, of non-believers."
If the lesser men are compared with the greater,
the number of believers become, for the former, 48.2
per cent, of the lesser men who answered; and for
the greater men, 31.6 per cent, of the greater men
who answered. Thus it appears that, among the
lesser men, believers and non-believers are nearly
equal, while over two-thirds of the greater men are
not able to affirm belief in the God of the Christian
churches. The reliability of these figures, when
taken to indicate a difference due to intellectual
ability and knowledge and to traits making for suc-
cess in the professions concerned, might be ques-
tioned if quite similar differences were not found in
* I shall use this term throughout, to designate by one
term both those who marked A2 (the disbelievers) and those
who marked A3 (the agnostics or doubters).
250 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
CHART III
OCCUPATIONS OF THE MEN OF SCIENCE OF
DIVISION I
Physical Psychol. Sociolo. Totals
Mathemat. Biolog. and and in per
Science Sciences Philos. Educat. cents.
College and Univ. rl07 57 6 3 58.
Professors \ 73 52 5 5 68.
Government serv- f 26 10 — — 12.
ice \17 6 — — 12.
r 38 3 — — 14.
Industry | ^g __ __ 1 6.
Lower School | 7 4 2 — 4.
Teachers \ 1 — — — —
Physicians and f — 10 — — 3.
Surgeons I — 3 — — 1.5
r 1 2 — 6 3.
Museums i g ^ gg
^^^^^^^^ { 9 2 "i "^ ?;
Unclassified I ^ 3 — — 3.
I 1 3 — — 2.
Notes : — The upper figure in each space refers to
the lesser; the lower one, to the greater men of
science.
The percentages {last column to the right) are of
the total number of lesser or greater men, as the
case may be. ,
It will be noticed that a few psychologists, sociolo-
gists, and educators got into this division. This was
not intended. In the second division physical and
biological scientists only were included. With this
difference, this table may stand also, in a general
way, for the second division.
THE STATISTICS 251
every one of the other groups, both regarding God
and immortality.
In this group, as well as in every other, the num-
ber of believers in immortality is larger than the
number of believers in God. This is an interesting
fact. When the two divisions are taken together,
the believers in immortality are found to be very
nearly equal to the non-believers, the proportions
are respectively 50.6 per cent, and 49.4 per cent.
If we compare the lesser with the greater men, we
get 59.3 per cent, of lesser, against 36.9 per cent.
of greater believers.
Among the greater men, believers, disbelievers,
and agnostics or doubters, number each about one
third of the total number of those who returned an
answer.
If, instead of taking the two divisions together,
we consider them separately, differences of the same
kind, but a little less for the first, and somewhat
larger for the second division are to be observed
with regard to both beliefs (see chart IV). The
difference between the lesser and the greater men
of the second division is shown by the figures 45.5
per cent, and 27.7 per cent, for believers in God;
and by 52.8 per cent, and 35.2 per cent., for be-
lievers in immortality.
252
GOD AND IMMORTALITY
CHART IV
BELIEF IN GOD
DIVISION I
LESSER
GREATER
DIVISION n
BOTH
LESSER GREATER
BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY
DIVISION 1
BOTH
LESSER
GREA TER
DIVISION n
BOTH
LESSER GREATER BOTH
I \BEUEVER3 l/^DfSBELIEVERS^^AGNO^T/CS & DOUBTERS
THE STATISTICS 253
It is noteworthy that the number of those who
announce agnostic or indefinite opinions concerning
immortality is greater than the number of disbe-
lievers. This is especially marked among the
greater men of the second division : disbelievers, 25.4
per cent. ; agnostics and doubters, 43.7 per cent.
They feel much less hesitation in affirming disbelief
in God : disbelievers, 52.7 per cent. ; doubtful opin-
ions, 20.9 per cent.' It would be interesting to
know how far the recent efforts of the Psychical
Researchers have led to a shift from disbelief in
immortality to a suspension of judgment.
Comparison of the Physical with the Biological
Scientists; Second Division. — The biologists pro-
duce a much smaller number of believers in God and
in immortality than the physicists (see chart V).
The figures are, for the believers in God : physicists,
43.9 per cent; biologists, 30.5 per cent; and for the
believers in immortality, 50.7 per cent, against 37
per cent.
There are fewer believers among the greater men,
whether physicists or biologists. The smaller per-
centage of believers is found among the greater
^ In several instances the percentages given in the text for
believers, disbelievers, and agnostics or doubters, sum up to
more than one hundred. The reason for this anomaly is that
some persons marked both disbelief and agnosticism or doubt
(statements 2 and 3). Among the men of science, for in-
stance, 15 lesser and 11 greater men of division I, and 5
lesser and 2 greater men of division II marked both A2 and
A3 ; in no other group did this happen as frequently.
In the graphic representations I counted as disbelievers all
those who marked both statements.
254 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
biologists; they count only 16.9 per cent, of be-
lievers in God and 25.4 per cent, of believers in im-
mortality. As many as 59.3 per cent, of greater
biologists express disbelief in God, and 31.7 per
cent, in immortality. The discussion of these in-
teresting figures had best be deferred until the
results from the other groups have been set forth.
The Desire for Immortality. — Among savage and
semi-civilized populations every one believes in im-
mortality because directly observable facts seem to
establish continuation v^ith absolute certainty; but
no one desires to enter the other life. With us it
is different. Of those who answered my Q. all who
profess belief in immortality, with the exception of
three in each division, express also a desire for it.
Even of those who do not believe, a considerable
number would find great solace in the assurance of
a future life.
" I should be very glad if the evidence seemed suf-
ficient to warrant marking the first statement in
each part of the Q., since to my mind there would
be considerable comfort in both beliefs," writes one
of my correspondents. Another, who has felt
obliged to mark A 2 and B 2 because he has " not
found the slightest trace of evidence " for God or
immortality *' in the course of 54 years of life,"
confesses that he ** sincerely abhors " his position.
The facts and the arguments known to my corre-
spondents are apparently quite insuflficient to con-
vince all those who would find satisfaction in the
expectation of an after life.
THE STATISTICS
CHART V
BELIEF IN GOD-
PHYSICAL SCIENTISTS
255
LESS£R . GREATER BOTH
BIOLOGICAL SCIENTISTS
LESSER
GREATER
BOTH
BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY
PHYSICAL SCIENTISTS
LESSER GREATER BOTH
BIOLOGICAL SCIENTISTS
LESSER
I \BeLlE\/eR5
GREATER BOTH
toiSBEUEVERS ^MaGNOSTICS & DOUBTERS
256 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
With the normally constituted individual, the
realization of the absence of ground for a belief
usually abates, and even removes the desire for it.
Such is apparently the experience of the person who
would desire immortality if he considered it ** at all
probable." The reasonable man tries to suppress
desire for the unattainable, and sometimes suc-
ceeds. Several marginal notes on the Q. affirm
this triumph of reason. But the desire for immor-
tality is usually too strong, either because deep-root-
ed in human nature or kept alive artifically, to yield
to lack of evidence. In the second division the num-
ber of non-believers who desire immortality is equal
to 20 per cent, of all those who marked any of the
statements concerning immortality.
In the two divisions taken together, only two dis-
believers desire immortality intensely ; while of those
who marked B 3, 29 desire it intensely. This fact
should be construed both as indicating the destruc-
tive effect of disbelief upon desire, and the influence
of strong desire upon belief.
The prospect of immortality leaves many believ-
ers very nearly indifferent. They say, ** I almost
never think of it " ; or, " It does not seem to influ-
ence my life '' ; and the like. In order to form some
opinion of the vitality of this belief, we should con-
sult the answers to the statements concerning desire
for immortality. Twenty-seven per cent, of those
who in the two divisions marked any of the state-
ments, do not at all desire immortality, 39 per cent,
desire it moderately, and 34 per cent, intensely.
THE STATISTICS 257
(For the statistics of the lesser and greater men con-
sidered separately, see chart VI.)
For some unstated reason, 24 persons who marked
Al and B 1 left B 4 unmarked. The only informa-
tion available concerning these persons is contained
in two remarks : '' I do not think about immortal-
ity"; ** I am indifferent to it." One may conjec-
ture that still others of these 24 were in the same
situation. They must have found all three state-
ments under B 4 too decidedly affirmative to repre-
sent fairly their attitude, for they neither desire
immortality intensely, nor moderately, nor yet do
they desire it not at all. They are rather, on the
whole, indifferent. In any case, it may be assumed
that, had they felt keen desire, they would have indi-
cated it.
CHART VI
PHYSICAL
\85.8X j \67.7X^^m
ISSSER. GR£ATER
BIOLOGICAL
I I INTENSE OR MODERATE
DESIRE
NO DESIRE
LESSBR GREATER
258 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
So few genuinely old-fashioned utterances are to
be found in my correspondence, that I quote this
model of pious resignation : " I desire immortality
in so far as it is the Lord's will." A disbeliever says
curtly, " I would dread it."
III. THE HISTORIANS
The last membership list of the American His-
torical Association was published in 1911. It con-
tains about 2800 names, a part only of whom are
professional historians. In order to make this
group as nearly as possible comparable with the men
of science, I limited the investigation to professors
of history in colleges and universities, leaving out,
however, the professors of history in Roman Cath-
olic institutions and all professors of Church his-
tory. The list thus prepared numbered 375 per-
sons. One hundred of these were selected as greater
historians. Of the remainder, 102 were singled out
according to a rule of chance similar to the one
followed in the case of the scientists, and designated
" lesser men." ' The other names were disregarded.
The Questionnaires not Returned, or Retuimed
Unanswered. — Six Q. were returned unopened, and
33 others were never heard from. We may prob-
•* I do not claim that these Hsts are perfect. Limitation
of time induced me to be satisfied with a list of greater men
compiled from two initial lists prepared by competent per-
sons; more was not necessary. The only criticism that might
be directed against the statistics on the ground that certain
names were not accurately ranked, is that the differences
shown to exist between the lesser and the greater historians
are smaller than they would have been had the lists been
more carefully prepared. This criticism I would accept, with
the reservation that, in my opinion, the error is a very small
one indeed.
THE STATISTICS 259
ably account for this large proportion on the
ground that the membership list of the American
Historical Association which I used, although the
most recent one, was over three years old. Many
of the Q. not heard from had no doubt been ad-
dressed to persons who had died or were absent
from home or were seriously ill.
Of the returned Q., twelve from greater, and seven
from lesser historians, were blank. But here agam,
as in the case of the scientists, comments make it
possible to classify a considerable number which
would on the whole increase the percentage of non-
believers. Persons who will not put their names
'' to a written creed," or " do not care to make any
definite statement," are in any case not ardent be-
lievers in propositions Al and Bl. They could not
have said, as did one of their number who marked
these statements: " With me it is not only a con-
viction; it is a fellowship and an experience of great
reality." The tables include, however, only those
who marked the statements. Four of those ad-
dressed were reported away and one is dead. Other
blank Q. probably fall into the same categories.
For a detailed discussion of the statistical signifi-
cance of the Q. returned unanswered, the reader is
referred to a preceding section.
The Beliefs in God and in Immortalitij.— There
is little difference between the greater historians
(see chart VII) and the greater scientists; only
about one-third of each believe in God. The pro-
portions are not very different regarding immor-
tality (see chart VII). If, however, the lesser his-
260
GOD AND IMMORTALITY
torians are compared with the lesser scientists, a
marked difference appears. The former include a
much larger number of believers than the latter:
63 per cent, against 48 per cent. A similar dis-
parity exists with regard to immortality.
In round numbers, the proportion of historian
non-believers in God among greater men is about
equal to that of believers among the lesser men,
namely two-thirds of the whole number of those who
answered. Of the 36.9 per cent, of non-believing
lesser men, as many as 34.2 per cent. ; and of the
67.1 per cent, of non-believing greater men, as many
as 50 per cent, affirmed positive disbelief in God
(A2). The contrast between the lesser and the
greater men is hardly less regarding immortality.
CHART VII
BELIEF IN GOD
LESSER GREATER
BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY
BOTH
LESSER
I \ BELIEVERS
GREATER
I DISBELIEVERS
BOTH
A GNOS TICS <S D0U3 TERS
THE STATISTICS 261
Three who marked Al disclaim any belief in
*' miraculous intervention with the laws of nature,"
or " suspension of natural laws." Two affirm a hope
of immortality. One of these marked neither Bl
nor B2; the other marked B2.
The Desire for Immortalitij. — The figures reveal
nothing of general interest not apparent in the
figures for the scientists (chart VI.) Forty-five
per cent, of the non-believers desire immortality
either moderately or intensely. Of the believers,
only one affirm.s the absence of desire. The number
of greater men who do not desire immortality is
nearly double that of the lesser men in the same
situation.'
IV. THE SOCIOLOGISTS
The last membership list of the American Socio-
logical Association (published in 1913) contains
approximately 580 names, a large number of whom
are of persons who may be called professional
sociologists neither in the practical nor in the acade-
mic sense. I thought I might, without increasing
the total number addressed and without giving up
the comparison of lesser with greater professors,
* One who did not mark belief, qualifies thus his affirmation
of desire, " if [the other life] is not radically different from
the present." Another who marked both conditional im-
mortality and moderate desire, adds, " but merely on account
of the instinctive clinging to life, and not from any rational
conception of the nature of the life hereafter. Annihilation
is preferable either to hell or to singing psalms in heaven."
One who marked B3 finds it impossible to answer the ques-
tions concerning desire without defining the conditions of im-
mortality. A person who accepts " the Roman Catholic
Church doctrine " abstained from marking any statement
under B.
262 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
enlarge the interest of the inquiry by making a
group of sociologists who are not teachers of so-
ciology. Accordingly, I prepared with the help of
two competent collaborators a list of 23 (it should
have been 25) greater professors, and I marked 25
of the remaining professors according to a rule of
chance/" Of the non-teaching sociologists, 149
were selected, also according to a rule of chance.
I had thus three lists, two of which were of pro-
fessors, numbering altogether 197 names.
The Questionnaires not returned or returned un-
answered.— The percentage of Q. not returned is
much less for the sociologists than for the histori-
ans and less also than for the scientists. Shall we
credit sociologists with deeper interest and greater
confidence in statistical investigations? It is cer-
tainly true that the statistical method of research is
the sociologist's very own, and that he is much more
generally familiar with its possibilities than the sci-
entist or the historian. However that may be, every
one of the 23 greater sociologists returned the Q.
and only three of them were blank. Of the 25 lesser
men, 24 filled the Q., one only remaining unac-
counted for. The non-teaching sociologists did not
do so well. Fourteen per cent, of them ignored the
Q. Four Q. were returned blank, two of these be-
cause of the death of the addressee; a third con-
tained the following, " All wise men are of one re-
ligion, but this wise man never tells which." I ven-
'" The Russell Sage Foundation was included among the
colleges and universities. Professors in Roman Catholic in-
stitutions were excluded.
THE STATISTICS
263
CHART VIII
BELIEF IN GOD
PROFESSORS NON-PROFESSORS
LBSSER CREA TER
PROFESSORS AND
NON-PROFESSORS
I I BELIEVERS
\DISBELI£VERS
XaQNOSTICS & DOUBTERS
BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY
PROFESSORS
LESSER
NON-PROF ES S ORS
GREATER
PROFESSORS AND
NON-PROFESS ORS
264 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
ture the opinion that wise men of this sort are not
in a position to mark Al. Five Q. came back un-
opened, with the inscription, " Not found."
The Beliefs in God omd in Immortality. — The
professors of sociology separate themselves sharply
from the non-academic sociologists. Regarding
the belief in God, the latter stand about midway
between the lesser scientists and the lesser histori-
ans (54.6 per cent, of believers; see chart VIII);
whereas of the 45 professors who marked the Q.
no more than 24.4 per cent, are believers in God.
When the greater professors are considered sepa-
rately, the difference in the number of believers and
non-believers is accentuated; only 19.4 per cent, of
them marked Al. These figures are approximately
the same as those for the greater biologists.
It is not difficult to explain the particular place
occupied by the sociologists and the biologists in
this investigation. When the student of physical
laws has come to accept determinism in the physical
world, he may and often does keep for the less gen-
erally understood biological and sociological phe-
nomena the traditional belief in divine intervention.
The biologist and the sociologist, however, bet-
ter acquainted with the natural causes of these
phenomena than their brothers of the physical
sciences, find it just as impossible to admit God's
action in the biological and sociological domains as
in the physical.
The figures referring to immortality suggest no
particular comment. As in the other groups, the
number of believers in immortality is greater than
THE STATISTICS 265
the number of believers in God. The features char-
acteristic of preceding groups reappear here. Of
the non-professing sociologists who marked Bl, one
believes merely ** in the possibility " of immortality;
and another treats immortality " as a working
hypothesis."
The Desire for Immortality. — The only point de-
serving special mention is the large proportion of
the non-professional group who desire immortality
intensely. In all other respects, the more general
remarks made with reference to the corresponding
figures for historians and scientists apply also to
the sociologists.''
V. THE PSYCHOLOGISTS
The list of members of the American Psychological
Association for 1914 contains 288 names. I elim-
inated the names of all those who do not teach
psychology (making an exception, however, in favor
of those engaged in scientific psychological re-
'' From the comments it appears that several abstained
from marking B4 because the " conditions " were not defined.
They said, " I desire immortality under some conditions."
Others refrained from expressing complete absence of desire
because they were merely " indifferent." On the other hand,
one who had marked moderate desire describes his attitude as
one of " practical indifference." In one case the desire is a
" matter of intellectual interest " pure and simple. I add the
comments of two persons, neither of whom marked Bl, al-
though they both expressed desire for immortality.
** The answer to B4 depends largely upon my physical con-
dition and the weather. The day when one feels immortal,
one intensely desires immortality."
" I desire fullness of life, not all its qualities and activi-
ties; life in all its best relations and noble purposes. The
desire involves immortality, though its contents is qualitative
rather than temporal."
266 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
search), those teaching in Roman Catholic institu-
tions and exclusively in medical schools/' and those
who are decidedly educators or pholosophers rather
than psychologists. This last exclusion was the
more appropriate that I intended to investigate
separately the beliefs of philosophers.
In a list thus reduced to about two-thirds of its
original length, fifty names were singled out as those
of the more distinguished psychologists ; and, mark-
ing the remaining names according to a rule of
chance, I obtained 57 lesser psychologists.
The Questionnaires Not Returned or Returned
Unanswered. — Four greater men did not return the
Q. ("absence" was the cause in one instance).
Eight returned unanswered blanks. Of the lesser
psychologists, none failed to return the Q. ; and, of
the four who returned blanks, two explained at some
length their views. The letter of one of these was
published in a preceding section."
The Belief in God, — The proportion of believers
(24.2 per cent., see chart IX) is almost the same
as among the teaching sociologists (24.4 per cent.).
The greater psychologists yield the smallest pro-
portion of believers of any of the groups investi-
gated, namely 13.2 per cent. This result bears out
** My reason for eliminating those teaching exclusively in
medical schools, is that these men are usually physiologists
rather than psychologists.
" In the selection of the greater men in this field, I was
assisted in the same way as in the preparation of the list of
greater historians.
To three psychologists who raised objections to the form of
the Q., I sent another set of questions prepared for the phi-
losophers. One psychologist answered that form.
THE STATISTICS
267
the explanation I ventured as to the differences in
the number of believers belonging to the several
classes of scientists.
The Belief in Immortality. — The most striking
fact brought to light by chart IX is that whereas in
every preceding group the number of believers in
immortality is substantially larger, and, in the
case of the sociologists, very much larger than that
of the believers in God, in the present group the
number of believers in immortality is clearly less
than that of the believers in God. Only three of
the greater psychologists declare a belief either
in unconditional or in conditional immortality.
CHART IX
BELIEF IN GOD
LESSER GREATER BOTH
BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY
LESSER
{^BEL/EVERS
GREATER.
tDIJBELIEVERsl
BOTH
\a5nostics & doubters
268 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
Taken altogether, the teaching sociologists give 49
per cent, of believers in immortality as against 24.4
per cent, of believers in God ; the psychologists, 19.8
per cent, as against 24.2 per cent.'*
From these figures one may fairly draw this con-
clusion: in the present phase of psychological
science, the greater one's knowledge of psychical life,
the more difficult it is to retain the traditional be-
lief in the continuation of personality after death.
The Desire for Immortality. — Although the num-
ber of those who do not desire immortality (47.2
per cent.) is far greater in this than in any other
group, nevertheless the desire remains, not only in
the small number of believers (with one exception) ,
but, also in addition, in 34.7 per cent, of the non-be-
lievers.
VI. THE PHILOSOPHERS
I intended from the first to cap the preceding
statistics with a study of American philosophers.
The Q. was, however, formulated primarily for
scientific men. It proved, on the whole, satisfac-
tory to them and also to the historians, to the
' * One psychologist replaced the word " belief " by " hope."
Another who, like the preceding, marked none of the state-
ments under B, says, " I think it likely, however, that my
psychological awareness of the world and of what I perceive
and conceive as myself will cease at death." That is also
the opinion of the one who describes God as " incarnated in
him and in others." He thinks it " likely " that conscious-
ness of the consciousness of our earthly self will cease. Is
that also the opinion of the one who marked Bl and wrote,
" I believe that there is something corresponding to personal
immortality, although I cannot make out a satisfactory belief
as to its nature" ? Should this person not admit the con-
tinuation of the consciousness of identity, he ought not to
have marked Bl.
THE STATISTICS 269
sociologists, and even to the psychologists. As it
was desirable to keep throughout to the same state-
ments, I ventured to send the same Q. to the
philosophers also. But the number of objectors
was so considerable that, after some correspondence
with philosophical friends, I prepared another set
of questions. My purpose remaining the same, the
new statements were so shaped as to make the
answers comparable with those already obtained.
A philosopher who had warned me that the first
form would prove a failure, thought the new formu-
lation '' a great improvement." A large proportion
of those addressed did in fact send in answers with-
out any expressed reservation ; but a disconcertingly
large number returned blanks ; and, what was worse,
in several instances the comments accompanying cer-
tain marked questions, especially Al, showed that
the same markings could not be taken to express in
all cases the same view.
The circumstances in which I found myself at the
time prevented a further effort to formulate state-
ments which might have met more exactly the needs
of the case. How difficult it would have been to pro-
duce something adequate without transforming alto-
gether the scope of my inquiry appears from the
following comment.
" I do not know what is meant in this circular
by the terms ' a God,' ' the course of nature,' * the
divine,' * personal immortality,' ' state of develop-
ment.' That is, I do not know in what sense Pro-
fessor Leuba uses these terms in this connection.
. It would therefore be useless for me to add
270 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
my statistical contribution. — This reply stands for
no lack of interest or of wish to cooperate."
Another, also a well disposed correspondent,
v/rites, *' I would answer, if I could, but I cannot, be-
lieving as I do in a meaning for all these things,
but not in the apparent meaning of the questions."
This philosopher differs from the preceding in that
he knows what the apparent meanings of the state-
ments are; but, because he does not accept those
meanings, he cannot answer, though he would like
to.
If the reader will recall the many quotations I
have made in the preceding pages, and in particular
the letters from two psychologists on pages . . and
. . . , he v/ill be amazed at the difference in under-
standing — unless it be something else — that sepa-
rates philosophers from other men, even from
eminent psychologists. For, in these letters there
appears not even the shadow of difficulty in inter-
preting the Q. It is as clear to these distinguished
psychologists as the questions of the Census Bureau.
One of the potent reasons for failure to answer
has already been mentioned. Those addressed
imagined that I was preparing statistics of philo-
sophical opinions on God and his relation to nature
and to man ; whereas my sole interest was to find out
how many of them accepted a particular conception
of God and of his relation to man. As the state-
ments did not provide the scope necessary to an
expression of their philosophy, these persons found
the Q. " inadequate." This seems to have been the
feeling of the one who wrote : —
THE STATISTICS 271
** I do not find it possible to answer your ques-
tions by Yes or No. I have very deep convictions
in reference to them all, but I should feel about
answering them with the plain Yes or No, very much
the way I would feel about answering the articles
of the creed, that any Yes or No was not quite ade-
quate. I have serious distrust of the statistical
method of promoting any matters of this sort, and
I feel sure that these questions can hardly bring to
light any adequate information about the general
spiritual attitude of present day men."
A number of those who returned blanks should, it
seems, have found it possible to fill out the Q. ; that
one, certainly, who wrote, ** I believe its effect
(prayer) is only aesthetic, analogous to those of
self-expression through lyric poetry or, possibly,
dramatic poetry."
But the fatal defect, for statistical purposes, of
the philosophers' returns, is that the marking of
Al does not express a uniform meaning. This ap-
pears conclusively in comments such as the fol-
lowing : —
'' I believe in a certain summation of effects
wrought by prayer — which is, of course, to be dis-
tinguished from the belief that objective conditions
may be altered by the mere weight of petitions. In
a universe in which, as I believe, the ordinary dis-
tinction between * subjective ' and * objective ' is a
practical and methodological one, there is no hard
and fast distinction between the * unalterable ' and
objective conditions and those which are subject to
the human will. Prayer is a potent influence in
272 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
fashioning the human will, and a world in which
men pray should differ profoundly from a world in
which men do not."
Agreeing as I do with all this, I unhesitatingly
deny belief in Al, instead of affirming it as this per-
son does. In so doing, I find myself in agreement
with practically all my non-philosophical corre-
spondents, and doubtless also with most philoso-
phers holding the view of prayer defined in the above
quotation.
Another, who also marked Al, added, " In some
sense, yes — or at least I am inclined so to believe."
But when he came to the statement, '' I have no
definite belief, etc." (A4 of Q. for philosophers) he
wrote, " Perhaps this comes nearer my position
than any of the other statements. / do not believe
in prayer as a means of getting something, either
external goods or desirable psychological states/' ''
Now, it seems clear that the sense in which this per-
son marked Al is not that given it by the non-
philosophers.
VII. COMPARISON OF THE SIGNED WITH THE UN-
SIGNED ANSWERS, AND OF THE ANSWERS
TO THE FIRST WITH THE ANSWERS TO THE
SECOND REQUESTS
Although signatures were not requested, a large
number of the respondents put their names to their
answers. In every group the proportion of signa-
tures among the answers to the first request is con-
siderably larger than among the answers to the
second.'" This might have been foreseen, for many
The italics are mine.
The percentages of signed answers to the first and to the
THE STATISTICS 273
who waited for the second appeal must have an-
swered reluctantly.
Who are most likely to sign, unasked, a statement
of religious belief? Not those in disagreement with
officially accredited convictions. Chart X shows
what a strong influence upon the readiness to sign
the answers is exerted by the thought of orthodox
opinion. In every group the proportion of believ-
ers is much larger among those who signed than
among those who did not. The figures for the his-
torians show the greatest difference; they are 66.7
per cent, for the believers who signed the Q., and
38.9 per cent, for the believers who did not. The
disbelieving greater men do not evince a greater
readiness to disclose their identity than their less
illustrious confreres. Of the signed answers from
greater historians, only 38.9 per cent, are from dis-
believers or doubters.
Men who do not chose to put their signatures
to their heterodox opinions when replying to a
scientific inquiry, are not likely to announce these
opinions to the orthodox people among whom they
may live. On the other hand, believers who, unre-
quested, sign their answers, are just as unlikely to
conceal their orthodox opinions from their neigh-
bors. I have already referred to the result of such
a condition, namely, the far reaching and misleading
exaggeration of the number of believers.
second requests were, for the scientists of division II, respec-
tively, 41.9 per cent, and 21.4 per cent.; for the historians,
41.6 per cent, and 13.9 per cent.; and for the sociologists,
33. G per cent, and 27.1 per cent.
274
GOD AND IMMORTALITY
CHART X
THE SIGNED
AND UNSIGNED
ANSWERS
Believers
Agnostics
Disbelievers or
Doubters
Non-
believers
^Lesser. .
...{
60.7
34.9
26.9
44.9
12.4
20.1
. . .
•43 g
§•2 Greater.
••{
34.6
23.5
46.2
55.1
19.2
21.4
S
Both....
r
51.1
34.
14.9
48.9
-i
30.4
48.9
20.6
69.5
Lesser. .
■■■{
70.
58.1
26.7
39.7
3.3
2.3
0 Greater.
■■•{
51.1
23.1
33.3
53.9
5.6
23.1
Both
••■{
66.7
29.2
4.2
33.3
38.9
47.4
13.6
61.1
Lesser. .
■■•{
35.7
19.4
57.1
61.3
7.1
19.4
• • •
0 Greater.
0
.1-1
^^■{
66.7
48.8
25.6
33.8
7.7
17.5
" Both....
r
58.5
33.9
7.5
41.5
...
40.5
41.4
18.
59.5
Notes : — The figures in this table are percentages
of the total number of lesser or of greater men, or
of both, as the case may be.
The upper figure, in each group of two, refers to
the signed, the lower to the unsigned answers.
THE STATISTICS 275
I have explained elsewhere that it was necessary
to send out the Q. twice. It occurred to me that a
comparison of the prompt with the tardy answers
might reveal intresting information on the attitude
of the respondents. One would suppose that per-
sons with clear and sharply defined views, whether
positive or negative, would be the more likely to
answer at the first request, while those with vague
and uncertain opinions would be tempted to pro-
crastinate. The figures do not bear out very
definitely this conjecture.
VIII. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS FROM THE
STATISTICS
Although I have already drawn attention to the
most striking results of this statistical inquiry and
to their significance, a brief summary and some ad-
ditional comments seem to be required in this place.
I have claimed that the investigation provides
relatively exact information concerning the beliefs
in God and in immortality of college students and of
several classes of men of high attainments. I have
further claimed that this information is valid for
all students in the non-technical departments of
.American colleges and universities of the first rank,
when the first rank is taken to mean approximately
the upper third of all recognized colleges; and for
all the American scientists, historians, sociologists,
and psychologists, when these designations are used
in as broad a sense as by the official organizations of
these different groups.
This second claim need not be accepted merely on
the strength of the affirmation of statisticians who
276 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
declare that the fractions of the whole groups upon
which our several investigations bear are sufficient
to make the results representative of the entire
groups. The 1000 scientists to whom the ques-
tionnaires were to be sent were separated into two
divisions of 500 each. A comparison of these two
divisions (chart IV) provides adequate justification
for the claim that our figures are valid — with un-
important variations — for all those whose names
are included in American Men of Science, i. e., for
practically every American who may at all properly
be called a scientist.
If, in the case of the scientists, we may take the
statistics of 1000 as representative of 5500, we may
a fortiori accept the other statistics as representing
the whole of each group, since in each the propor-
tion upon which the investigation bears is larger
than in the case of the scientists. While for these
the proportion is only 17 per cent., for the histor-
ians, it is 54 per cent.; for the sociologists, 34 per
cent. ; and for the psychologists, 56 per cent.
The representative nature of our statistics invests
them with a great significance, for if these groups
of men do not include all the intellectual leaders
of the United States, they certainly include the
great majority of them. The expression *' intellect-
ual " leader should not by any means be construed as
a disclaimer of the importance of the moral in-
fluence exerted by these men. Most of them are
teachers in schools of higher learning. In that
capacity they should be, and doubtless are, in a very
real sense, moral leaders. There is no class of men
THE STATISTICS 277
who, on the whole, rival them for the influence ex-
erted upon the educated public and upon the young
men from whom are to come most of the leaders of
the next generation.
What, then, is the main outcome of this research?
Chart XI (Partial Summary of Results) shows that
in every class of persons investigated, the number
of believers in God is less, and in most classes very
much less than the number of non-believers, and that
the number of believers in immortality is somewhat
larger than in a personal God ; that among the more
distinguished, unbelief is very much more frequent
than among the less distinguished ; and finally that
not only the degree of ability, but also the kind of
knowledge possesed, seems significantly related to
the rejection of these beliefs.
The correlation shown, without exception, in
every one of our groups between eminence and dis-
belief appears to me of momentous significance. In
three of these groups (biologists, historians, and
psychologists) the number of believers among the
men of greater distinction is only half, or less than
half the number of believers among the less distin-
guished men. I do not see any way to avoid the
conclusion that disbelief in a personal God and in
personal immortality is directly proportional to
abilities making for success in the sciences in ques-
tion. What these abilities are, we shall see in the
following chapter.
A study of the charts, with regard to the kind
of knowledge which favors disbelief shows that the
historians and the physical scientists provide the
278
GOD AND IMMORTALITY
D
to
Co
t>1
I
C3
I
3
?0
is ?i
I
^
•^
^
^
HISTORIANS
~tA ^
§
PHySICAL SCIENTISTS
BIOLOGICAL SC\
S0CI0L06I5T5
T j |[ 1
PSYCHOLOGISTS
i' ro Cm "^
^ o «2> <::i
^
0^
HI STORIANS
PHYSICAL SCIENTISTS
BIOIOS.SC]
SOCIOLOGISTS
N
O
03
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^
o
I
THE STATISTICS 279
greater; and the psychologists, the sociologists and
the biologists, the smaller number of believers. The
explanation I have offered is that psychologists,
sociologists, and biologists in very large numbers
recognize fixed orderliness in organic and psychical
life, and not merely in inorganic existence; while
frequently physical scientists recognize the presence
of invariable law in the inorganic would only. The
belief in a personal God as defined for the purpose of
our investigation is, therefore, less often possible to
students of psychical and of organic life than to
physical scientists.
The place occupied by the historians next to the
physical scientists would indicate that, for the
present, the reign of law is not so clearly revealed in
the events with which history deals as in biology,
economics, and psychology. A large number of
historians continue to see the hand of God in human
affairs. The influence, destructive of Christian be-
liefs, attributed in this interpretation to more inti-
mate knowledge of organic and psychical life, ap-
pears incontrovertibly, as far as psychical life is
concerned, in the remarkable fact that whereas in
every other group the number of believers in im-
mortality is greater than that in God, among the
spychologists the reverse is true ; the number of be-
lievers in immortality among the greater psycholo-
gists sinks to 8.8 per cent. One may affirm it seems
that, in general, the greater the ability of the psy-
chologist as a psychologist, the more difficult it be-
come for him to believe in the continuation of in-
dividual life after bodily death.
280 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
The students' statistics show that young people
enter college possessed of the beliefs still accepted,
more or less perfunctorily, in the average home of
the land, and that as their mental powers mature
and their horizon widens, a large percentage of them
abandon the cardinal Christian beliefs. It seems
probable that on leaving college, from 40 to 45 per
cent, of the students with whom we are concerned
deny or doubt the fundamental dogmas of the Chris-
tian religion. The marked decrease in belief that
takes place during the later adolescent years, in
those who spend those years in study under the in-
fluence of persons of high culture, is a portentous
indication of the fate which, according to our sta-
tistics, increased knowledge and the possession of
certain capacities leading to eminence reserve to the
beliefs in a personal God and in personal immor-
tality.
The situation revealed by the present statistical
studies demands a revision of public opinion regard-
ing the prevalence and the future of the two cardi-
nal beliefs of official Christianity, and shows the fu-
tility of the efforts of those who would meet the
present religious crisis by devising a more efficient
organization and cooperation of the churches, or
more attractive social features, or even a more com-
plete consecration of the church membership to Its
task. The essential problem facing organized Chris-
tianity is constituted by the wide-spread rejection of
its two fundamental dogmas — a rejection apparently
destined to extend parallel with the diffusion of
knowledge and the intellectual and more qualities
that make for eminence in scholarly pursuits.
CHAPTER X
INDIVIDUALISM AS A CAUSE OF THE RE-
JECTION OF TRADITIONAL BELIEFS
It is commonly supposed that knowledge and de-
sire determine belief. This is substantially true only
of the classes of beliefs not backed by some form
of social sanction — supposing there be any such.
When we say that we are social beings we mean,
among other things, that we hold opinions which we
have neither established nor critically examined,
and that we are guided by aims which correspond
more to the needs of society than to our natural in-
dividual inclinations. The few who markedly de-
part from this, the way of social life, are pilloried as
iconoclasts and rebels, or lauded as innovators and
reformers. But not even these escape the power of
social forces. The most they may claim is to be
freer than others from the pressure of social con-
victions and practices, and to determine to a greater
degree their beliefs and conduct according to their
own nature and critical knowledge.
How compelling the prestige and the power of
political and religious bodies, and how independent
their influence may be of the personal inclinations
of the individual and of rational knowledge, appears
perhaps sufficiently on a survey of the geographical
distribution of political and religious convictions.
A mere boundary line separates Christians from
281
282 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
Buddhists, or the admirers of a king from his bitter
detractors — this, even though little or no differ-
ence in culture or in temperament or in moral likes
and dislikes differentiates the populations. The
influence of social forces in the establishment of be-
liefs should be kept in mind in attempting to ac-
count for their disappearance.
No one, I think, will be disposed to contradict me
when I affirm that the loss of belief accompanying
collegiate progress (charts I, II) can hardly be due
to a decrease of a genuine desire for an immortal
life in heaven. The students in the lower classes
do not yearn for the angelic life more acutely and
generally than those in the higher classes. In any
case, the statistics would not bear out that explana-
tion. Is it, then, the clearer realization of the
absence of sufficient evidence for immortality and
of the strength of the objections to it, which break
down the traditional faith of many students as they
pass on to the higher classes? To a certain extent,
yes. But certainly not that alone. Direct argu-
ments for or against immortality have affected but
little even the older of these students. The propor-
tions of juniors and of seniors who declare that they
have never considered the arguments for immortal-
ity are almost the same as that of the freshmen and
of the sophomores.
The chief influence on the decrease of belief
among older students should be ascribed, in my
opinion, to the gain in independence which is a nor-
mal result of growth and education. Young people
enter college with few opinions that may be called
THE CHIEF CAUSE OF DISBELIEF 283
their own ; they are echoes of their social world. In
college, they take fuller cognizance of their powers
as independent individuals, they learn to detach
themselves in thought from the various social groups
to which they have belonged or to which they
actually belong. They begin to react upon the
traditional environment with the energy of their
newly found individuality. A serious crisis is often
passed through at this period, during which they
are sorely tempted to make a tahula rasa of the
" rubbish " with which they find themselves loaded
—and little is there which in their impatience of
restrait and in the conceit of their ignorance they
would not wipe out with that epithet.
The presence of a powerful impulse to self-affirma-
tion and independence is, it seems to me, revealed
incontrovertibly in chart I where men and women
are compared. Why are there 82 per cent of
female believers in God and only 56 per cent, of
male*^ It is not because the latter are in possession
of information unknown to the former. They be-
long to the same colleges, attend the same courses,
and move in the same social circles. The main cause
of the differences is to be found, I hold, m the
greater readiness of men to break from tradition.
Whether it is a secondary sex difference or merely
the product of her education and social position,
the greater conservatism of woman is not seriously
contested. One of its consequences in the sphere
of religion is that just attributed to it: during the
years of adolescent self-affirmation the desires for
intellectual freedom and for a rational organization
284 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
of opinions and conduct are in young women more
effectively balked than in young men by the tender
ties of the home and the authority of the church.
The greater aversion of women to breaking with
their social group — an aversion which makes them
more impervious to information threatening them
with isolation — is an aspect of their greater tender-
ness and conscious weakness. Other things being
equal, the readiness to break with one's social circle
and one's past is inversely proportional to love for
and dependence upon that circle and that past. One
may therefore say, as I did when discussing chart I,
that the greater proportion of women believers is an
expression of their greater need of affection and of
their clearer consciousness of dependence.
When denying to knowledge the principle share in
the maintenance of the beliefs with which we are
concerned, we should not forget that the aggress-
ively self-reliant person is more likely to scrutinize
the foundation of the faith urged upon him and to
look for or at least to pay attention to facts and argu-
ments in support of other possible faiths. But know-
ledge thus gained is to be referred to that indepen-
dence which appears to me the fundamental cause of
the difference of belief we have discovered. The more
fundamental thing to bear in mind is, I repeat, not
any possible inferiority in point of knowledge, but
a difference in attitude and disposition towards the
established order of things. As to the relation of
knowledge itself to belief, it is a common-place of
psychology that conviction is not a function of
knowledge alone, but is dependent in a very sub-
THE CHIEF CAUSE OF DISBELIEF 285
stantial way upon inclination. Much of what we
know never finds its logical place in our conscious-
ness ; whereas other items of knowledge lend to prop-
ositions towards which we incline far greater weight
than legitimately belongs to them.
If now we turn to the statistics that deal with men
of different degrees of eminence, we shall again be
led to ascribe the more fundamental influence in
the production of differences in the number of be-
lievers, to intellectual and moral independence and
therefore to whatever permits or fosters that inde-
pendence. Greater eminence implies, doubtless,
greater knowledge in the field of eminence and fre-
quently also outside of it. But this does not mean
that the loss of belief accompanying eminence arises
entirely or even chiefly from greater knowledge.
The reward of eminence is not usually given for mere
knowledge and sheer intellectual ability ; the measure
of native intellectual capacity is far from being
always in direct relation to the social and scientific
standing attained. The qualities we have just as-
signed in larger degree to men than to wom.en are,
in the careers followed by the persons included in
our statistics, foremost factors among those leading
to eminence. The men of higher rank are, on the
whole, distinguished among their colleagues for
activity, tenacity, initiative, and self-reliance.' Of
^ I purposely leave out of consideration certain moral qual-
ities that are not pertinent to our discussion. In English Men
of Genius, page 92, Sir Francis Galton, wrote, "The first of
the qualities of especial service to scientific men is independ-
ence of character. Fifty of my correspondents show that
they possess it in excess, and in two only is it below par."
286 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
these qualities, at least the last two tend to resist
the forces of tradition, of authority, and of prestige,
as well as to increase knowledge.
The restraining influence of early moral training
and of public opinion has been brought out in the
discussion of the signatures and of the comments
accompanying the answers to our questionnaire.
At the same time we have realized that a certain
callousness making for affective freedom from kith
and kin, for love of the naked truth and sharply de-
fined situations, and a courageous impatience with
the bonds that would tie us to the past and retard
the movement forward and upward, enter as fre-
quent and powerful factors in the determination of
the opinions of our scientific men. Possession in
reasonable degree of these qualities, antagonistic to
the traditional and the orthodox, is incontestably
favorable to success in the careers followed by the
classes of men with whom we have been occupied.
I conclude, therefore, that the greater loss of belief
suffered by the greater men is probably not to be
ascribed chiefly to their greater knowledge, but
rather to certain temperamental qualities or ener-
gies which make it relatively easy for them to rid
themselves of much of the social pressure to which
others yield.
The action of the qualities singled out is favored
by the social environment to which the person who
has reached distinction is usually transported. He
finds himself removed from lower circles where tra-
dition holds undisputed sway. Around him intel-
lectual freedom is honored far above orthodoxy.
THE CHIEF CAUSE OF DISBELIEF 287
So that those who fill the places that fall to the lot
of distinguished men of science are relieved of much
of the pressure which bears upon their less favored
colleagues. If, furthermore, the greater men issue
predominantly from eminent families, they have
been from their early years freer than the lesser men
from the influence usually exerted upon youth by
narrow traditional opinion. In a struggle against
the forces of tradition, the greater men would thus
be doubly favored.
How shall we account, now, for the differences in
belief among the lesser men and the greater men
themselves? Within these subdivisions as between
them, the existing difference in distinction rest in
part upon the qualities I have singled out; I see,
therefore, no reason for giving a separate answer
to this second part of the problem.
But why should greater moral and intellectual
independence result in the rejection of the beliefs
with which we have been concerned, instead of lifting
them up to the level of truly personal, critically
established convictions? When the grounds of belief
are insufficient to mee the requirement of an inde-
pendent mind, then independence leads either to the
rejection of the belief or to agnosticism.
PART III
OF THE PRESENT UTILITY OF THE BE-
LIEFS IN PERSONAL IMMORTALITY
AND IN A PERSONAL GOD
INTRODUCTORY
The outcome of the foregoing study of the origin
of modern immortality, of the metaphysical argu-
ments adduced in its support, and of the statistics
of belief in it, is that it rests not upon any scien-
tifically established fact or convincing argument,
but upon the usefulness rightly or wrongly ascribed
to it. Faith in the hereafter must therefore justify
itself by its utility. Is humanity better off with
than without that belief? That is the form which
the problem assumes. We are not to consider
only the direct loss, but also any effect which its
surrender may entail. Like a physical object, if
in another sense, a belief fills a place which no other
belief can occupy. It has to be removed before an-
other can flourish in its place. The value of new
beliefs, made possible by the disappearance of the
old, is, therefore, a constituent part of our problem.
Although I have come to hold that, in so far
as the most civilized nations are concerned, the
modern belief in immortality costs more than it
is worth, I do not, of course, claim the ability to
prove this opinion to the satisfaction of everybody.
An exhaustive treatment of the subject would,
furthermore, be impossible here. I shall limit my-
self to the presentation of certain weighty facts
and considerations. They indicate that the utility of
the belief in immortality to civilized nations is much
more limited than is commonly supposed ; and that,
290
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY? ^^^
if we bring into the calculation all the consequences
of the belief, and not merely its grttifying effect, we
may even be brougt to conclude that its disappear-
ance from among the most civilized nations would
be, on the whole, a again.'
The situation revealed in the preceding pages
would be a hopeless one if those were right who hold
that utter pessismism and moral decay would be the
price paid for the surrender of immortality. '* No
sooner do we try to get rid of the idea of immortal-
ity," writes Emerson, *' that Pessimism raises its
head. . . . Human griefs seem little worth assuaging ;
human happiness too paltry (at best) to be worth in-
creasing. The whole moral world is reduced to a
point. Good and evil, right and wrong, become in-
finitesimal, ephemeral matters. The affections die
away — die of their own conscious feebleness and
uselessness. A moral paralysis creeps over us," *
^ Inasmuch as a similar problem exists with regard to the
belief in a personal God, and as these beliefs usually dis-
appear altogether, I shall refer to both of them when the
argument applies to both.
The metaphysically inclined is referred to discussions of
the value of belief in God in McTaggart's Some Doginas
of Religion ("Theism and Happiness"), and in Hocking's
The Meaning of God in Religious Experience (" The Need
of God").
^ As quoted in the article, " Immortality," 11th edition of
Ency. Brit., I was not able to find this passage in Emerson's
writings.
Alfred Tennyson is reported by his son (Vol. II of A
Memoir, London, 1897) as follows, " The life after death,
Lightfoot and I agree, is the cardinal point of Christianity."
P. 420.
See R. S. Ellis, " The Attitude Toward Death and the
292 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
Were this true, it were better for this book never to
have been written ; and the attitude to be commended
in the presence of this great problem would not be
the one of the fearless inquirer, but that of the os-
trich. But is the modern belief in immortality
really necessary in order to make this life worth liv-
ing; do we lose with it all possibility of living justly,
generously, and beautifully?
The burden of the verification of this direful pre-
diction may quite properly be left to those who make
it. They might point to shocking instances of
moral wretchedness in unbelievers, quite regardless
of other unbelievers who are models of cheerful cour-
age and useful citizenship ; and they might instance
the atrocious deeds of communities which have open-
ly rejected the beliefs with which we are concerned,
as France during the Great Revolution. But the dem-
onstration of a causal relation between the rejection
of God and immortality and the wickedness of a
historical period is not made by the discovery of this
coincidence. It would be just as plausible to attrib-
ute to unbelief the noble principles and the great
social reforms of the French Revolution.
When confronted with the discovery that consid-
erably more than half of all the men included in our
investigation, and over two-thirds of the more emi-
nent of these, are non-believers in personal immortal-
ity and in God, what will these pessimists say?
Types of Belief in Immortality." Jr. of Relig., Psy., VII, 1915,
466-510.
O. Lowes Dickinson, " Is Immortality Desirable"? Boston,
1909.
Coe's " The Psychology of Religion, Chap. XVII.
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY? 293
They may repeat the well-worn, although never veri-
fied affirmations that unbelievers are saved by the
leaven of believers, and that only men of great intelli-
gence can dispense with these beliefs. But that
which these and other facts, soon to be mentioned,
may be taken to demonstrate is rather that the moral
leaven is to-day in civilized lands provided to a very
considerable extent by the unbelievers themselves.
Nothing is more open to suspicion than the feeling
of certitude with which it is common to affirm that
this or that moral or material possession is necessary
to one's well being. The true value of a possession
is usually revealed only by its loss. We may find
that to be deprived of it is a blessing in disguise, even
as Silas Marner discovered after the disappearance
of his gold that there were immeasurably greater
treasures than those to which he had until then given
his heart. Against those who assume the validity
of the feeling of the necessity of another life in order
to live out this life worthily and in contentment, rise
the numberless instances of those who, having cher-
ished that conviction and lost it, found themselves
ultimately none the poorer. That opinion is also
contradicted by the growing number of eminent
moral teachers who condemn the clinging to personal
existence after death as a hindrance to the best life
on earth.
The alleged necessity of the beliefs in God and im-
mortality need not arrest us longer. The only ques-
tion deserving consideration is that of the loss that
may be entailed or, perchance, the gain that may be
made by their surrender.
CHAPTER XI
THE DESIRE FOR IMMORTALITY AND
THE USEFULNESS OF THE BELIEF
We have seen that in Christian countries immor-
tality is far from being a universal object of desire.
Very little more than half the students in investiga-
tion B ascribed to the belief in immortality a serious
practical importance (chart II). Among the lesser
scientists of the second division, 21.5 per cent, an-
nounced the absence of the desire, and 38.7 per cent,
a moderate desire, while among the greater men, as
many as 35.5 per cent, disclaimed any desire for im-
mortality, and 39.1 per cent, more affirmed a mod-
erate desire only (see chart VI, p. 258). Many of
the believers indicated that they were nevertheless
quite indifferent to the belief ; the utterances of sev-
eral of these have been quoted. Among the psychol-
ogists, 47.2 per cent, affirmed the absence of desire
for immortality. These figures will no doubt cause
surprise, for it is, I think, generally supposed that
even the disbelievers yearn for it. In so far as Schil-
ler's figures are comparable, they confirm mine. He
had imagined before the investigation that nearly
everybody must feel at least a temporary concern
about the future life. His returns " showed com-
paratively little evidence of great spiritual revolu-
tions and still less of any considerable anguish
294
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY? 295
connected with them." ' He was therefore driven to
the conclusion that *' spiritual crises and prolonged
religious excitements are the prerogative of excep-
tional temperaments; ordinary persons seem to ad-
just themselves easily and rapidly to their definite
attitude." My own inquiries lead to the same con-
clusion: they are rare who do not succeed in adjust-
ing themselves satisfactorily to the loss of religious
beliefs once held to be absolutely indispensable.
Forty-three per cent, of the men and 22 per cent,
of the women students (investigation A) declare
themselves indifferent to the existence of God. These
are nearly all non-believers.
The great discrepancy between the actual facts
and the general opinion concerning the desire for and
the prevalence of the beliefs in God and immortal-
ity, is readily explained. The unbelievers usually
keep their opinions to themselves, because of the ob-
loquy cast upon disbelievers, and because the ground
for their unbelief is rarely clearly formulated in their
own minds. The believers, convinced as they are
' " The Answers to the American Branch Questionnaire
regarding Human Sentiment as to a Future Life"; Pro. Soc.
Psy. Research; Part 49; Vol. XVIII; pages 428, 429.
Forty per cent, only, out of a total of 3321 answers, gave
an affirmative answer to the query, " Do you now feel the
question of a future life to be of urgent importance to your
mental comfort?" In this 40 per cent, were included those
" who had never entertained a doubt, or had trained them-
selves to regard a future life as certain, and then dismissed
the matter from their minds." Schiller remarks that " these
had to be counted as yesses, especially when it was expressly
stated that though a future life might not be often thought
of, yet to lose this assurance would amount to a spiritual
catastrophe." The " noes," we are told, are often of a very
decided character ; " not at all," " not in the least," " never
think about it," being common phrases.
296 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
that the welfare of the community depends upon
these beliefs, drown by the loudness and frequency
of their affirmations the objections offered by
the most assertive of the unbelievers. As long as a
few hold God and immortality to be vital beliefs,
while most think that nothing is to be gained by their
loss, the present mistaken opinion concerning their
prevalence and potency will persist.
Should any one be tempted to seek the cause of in-
difference to immortality in an uneasy consciene or
in moral obtuseness, a closer examination of my sta-
tistical data should undeceive him. The increase in
indifference and disbelief accompanying scientific
eminence and collegiate progress is decidedly not
compatible with that explanation.
Dislike for Immortality: — Not only is it true that
a certain number of believers do not desire immor-
tality; but a relatively considerable number of un-
believers and perhaps a few believers abhor the
idea of endless continuation. Many instances of
marked dislike for immortality have been recorded.
I select the following : —
A woman, thirty years of age, declares that she
" has always felt death to be better than all, and the
sight of death does not weaken the pleasure of an-
ticipating it as the best thing life has to offer ; this
sense that it is a triumph, is not born of theology or
distaste for life; for health, surroundings, joy of life
have always been of the best ; there is no thought of
anything after life, but death itself is * a consumma-
tion devoutly to be wished.' " *
President G. Stanley Hall: "A Study of Fears"; Amer.
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY? 297
A man, twenty years old, member of the Presby-
terian Church, writes : —
" I have thought about immortality considerably,
but it does not cause me any uneasiness at all. I
shall be content to die, absolutely dead, and pass off
into nothing, — beautiful, blessed, peaceful nothing,
— when I do die. Of course I love life, and shall
live with a vim as long as I can, but I do not desire
to live forever. I want to be unconscious, and not
even know that it is * I ' who am resting." '
From my own collection I take this: —
*' For some cause which I do not know how to ex-
plain, I feel a great dread of the possibility of hav-
ing to live forever, or even again. If I could be cer-
tain that at death I would find oblivion, it would add
greatly to my present happiness." *
If the hope of immortality has often been the
poet's inspiration, he also has been moved by the
hope of annihilation : —
" From too much love of living.
From hope and fear set free.
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives forever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
" Then star nor sun shall waken.
Nor any change of light;
Nor sound of waters shaken,
Nor any sound or sight;
Jr. of Psy.; VIII; 1897. Pages 221-224.
• J. Morse and J. Allen, Jr. : " The Religion of One Hun-
dred and Twenty-six College Students " ; Jr. of Relig. Psy-
chol; 1913; VII; pages 175-194.
* Number 116 of my unpublished documents.
298 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,
Nor days nor things diurnal;
Nor the sleep eternal
In an eternal night." "
John Addington Symonds echoed in prose the
same sentiments : —
" Until that immortality of the individual is ir-
refragably demonstrated, the sweet, the immeasur-
ably precious hope of ending with this life, the ache
and languor of existence, remains open to burdened
human personalities/' '
It would be hard for those who in discouragement
and sorrow are accustomed to find comfort in the
contemplation of an eternity of bliss, to see in these
instances anything more than an expression of
moral perversion. I do not think, however, that
that judgment w^ould fit the majority of the wooers
of annihilation. Yet there are among them a few
clearly abnormal cases ; this one, for instance : —
** The main idea by which I am tormented'is that
of eternity; ... I feel time lasting indefinitely,
space lengthening without end, something like a
never stopping crescendo. It seems to me that my
being gradually swells, substitutes itself to every-
thing, grows by absorbing worlds and centuries, then
bursts, and everything ceases, and I am left with an
atrocious pain in the head and in the stomach. . . .
It is eternity which is frightful. Something with-
out end, how horrible! Everlasting happiness, and
' Swinburne, " The Garden of Proserpina."
' From a letter to Henry Sidgwick.
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY? 299
after? Still happiness, and after? That is as hor-
rible as everlasting suffering." '
One is not even at liberty to suppose that an un-
usual degree of disillusionment is responsible for
aversion to a future life in the physiologically healthy
and morally normal, for the fading away of the
promises of early life should rather fix one's eyes
more firmly upon the Perfect Life; modern immor-
tality has sprung precisely from dissatisfaction with
earthly existence. There must be something else
that accounts for the difference between those who
crave and those who abhor immortality.'
But why seek far afield for an explanation of the
dislike of immortality? A weariness of existence,
^ Pierre Janet: Les Obsessions et la Psychasthenie; Vol. I,
pages 136, 137.
* If abhorence of eternal existence of any conceivable sort,
is after all exceptional in Christian countries, it is the com-
mon expectation in orthodox Buddhism. Nirvana, to which
the followers of Buddha aspire, is a state from which all
wickedness and corruption have departed and also all de-
sires ; individual personality has disapeared by absorption in
the All:
" And being, 0 priests, myself subject to birth, I per-
ceived the wretchedness of what is subject to birth, and crav-
ing the incomparable security of a Nirvana free from birth,
I attained the incomparable security of a Nirvana free from
birth; myself subject to old age, . . . disease, . . . death, . . .
sorrow, . . . corruption, I perceived the wretchedness of what
is subject to corruption, and, craving the incomparable se-
curity of a Nirvana free from corruption, I attained the
incomparable security of a Nirvana free from corruption.
And the knowledge and the insight sprang up within me,
* My deliverance is unshakable ; this is my last existence ; no
more shall I be born again.' And it occurred to me, 0 priests,
as follows:
" * This doctrine to which I have attained is profound,
recondite, and difficult of comprehension, good, excellent, and
not to be reached by mere reasoning, subtil, and intelligible
only to the wise. Mankind, on the other hand, is captivated,
300 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
temperamental, or the fruit of age ' or of other cir-
cumstances (but no necessarily due to disillusion-
ment) ; a disposition to enjoy the mood that informs
Bryant's noble poem, Thanatopsis; and especially,
perhaps, an inability to picture in intelligible and
acceptable form a future life, suffice to make of a
death that ends all, an acceptable, even a desirable
goal.
If no one can be indifferent to happiness, one may
not be able to foresee conditions of real eternal hap-
piness. The despisers of immortality should not be
thought to occupy the paradoxical position of
rejecting blessedness; they are rather not able to
persuade themselves that any eternal life of which
they can conceive, would be to them blessedness.
This is an important and a neglected aspect of the
problem of immortality. Outside of the simple folk
who accept whole-heartedly a paradise similar to the
Garden of Eden, with God walking about in the cool
of the evening, believers in personal immortality
find themselves hard put to it to conceive under defi-
entranced, held spell-bound by its lusts; and forasmuch as
mankind is captivated, entranced, held spell-bound by its
lusts, it is hard for them ... to understand how all the con-
stituents of being may be made to subside, all the substrata
of being be relinquished, and desire be made to vanish, and
absence of passion, cessation, and Nirvana be attained.' "
Henry Clarke Warren: Buddhism in Translations; Vol. Ill;
1900. Pages 338, 339.
• Colin Scott (Loc. cit., page 91) reports the opinion, or
rather the " feeling," of sixteen old persons (average age,
seventy-six) concerning their desire for life. Ninety-four
per cent, w^ould not like to live over ; seventy per cent, long to
die. Is this because of fatigue with this life, or because of
the hope of future blessedness? Indifference to the other life
probably keeps pace with indifference to this. Both are ex-
pression of weakened desire.
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY? 301
nite forms a never ending existence neither puerile
nor surfeiting. The imagery of the New Testament
is in this regard, as much as Dante's, symbolic or
poetic. The fact is — and it is important that we
should realize it — that we can think of the other
life as eternal blissfulness only on condition of not
insisting upon knowing anything specific about it.
As soon as, no longer satisfied with a general assur-
ance of unruffled peace and unalloyed enjoyment, we
demand specifications, we find ourselves in the pres-
ence of ideas and pictures, either absurd or repulsive,
or void of real attractiveness. The best gifted reli-
gious seers succeed in this descriptive task no better
than the cleverest mediums. The utter failure of the
latter to provide anything in the least acceptable in
the way of a picture of the other world, when even
moderate success would make their fortune, is a
striking demonstration of the necessity for those
who desire immortality of being content with a bare
assurance of happiness and to be wary of curiosity ;
for never since the days of Pandora was there a
curiosity more surely threatening disaster.
It is after all not very difl[icult to enter into the
feelings of the weary earthly traveler who prefers
the thought of extinction at death to the risk of an
endless individual existence which, the more care-
fully he seeks to picture or conceive, the less attrac-
tive it becomes. In his acute study of the desire for
immortality, Schiller noted the fact, and also the
freedom with which many make use of the belief
when and how it pleases them and forget it when its
remembrance would be inconvenient : —
302 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
" The future life is a vision that floats before the
eye of faith, not a brutal fact to be thrust upon a
reluctant attention. The world can stomach a fu-
ture life so discreetly formulated." Thinking at
times about heaven and hell, liking to hear an occa-
sional sermon about them, *' in no wise implies that
they are taken as facts and must be acted on as
such. On the contrary, it is just because the re-
ligious doctrines of Immortality are not taken as
fact .that they are accepted. . . . Hence the re-
ligious doctrines with respect to the future life form
a sort of paper currency, inconvertible with facts,
which suits people and circulates the better because
of its very badness. Their function is to conjure up
pleasing and consoling visions whenever we are in a
mood for them, to provide a brighter background for
life than sheer extinction ; but they are not allowed
to grow insistent enough seriously to affect ac-
tion." '"
The very significant disposition to play fast and
loose with immortality appears in the answers to this
question of the inquiry of the Society for Psychical
Research, ** Would you like to know for certain
about the future life, or would you prefer to leave it
a matter of faith?" Only 21 per cent, out of a
total of 3218 may be credited with a real desire for
a scientific knowledge of the possibility of a future
life, while 23 per cent, voted for faith, 12.9 per cent.
for ignorance, and 3.3 per cent, declared indiflfer-
ence. Definite knowledge might not meet all our de-
sires ; it certainly would not leave us the freedom we
Humanism: London; 1903. Pages 239, 240.
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY? 303
enjoy when immortality is a matter of faith, or one
of which we are ignorant."
In any case, it is a fact, as President Stanley Hall
remarks, that '' even those surest of Heaven stay
here to the last possible moment, even though their
lives in this world be miserable. Does not this show
that belief in post-mortem life is a convention, a
dream-wish? If we were told of a new continent ot
fabulous wealth and charm, and believed it all, we
should go to it by individuals, families, tribes, and
leave fatherlands untenanted, although we had to
brave dark and tempestuous seas to get there. We
should not ritually pray against a sudden transit, or
be called fanatics if we voluntarily crossed the tide
because the old world had become intolerably hard
for us." ^^ . ,
Indifference to Immortality,— If the number ot
persons disinclined to an eternal future existence is
considerable, those who are simply indifferent or
nearly so are legion. Every one may find about him
many belonging to this category. Most of these will
add, *' But my friends and neighbors could not get
- Schiller's figures could be supported by a long array
whethefin Ton e way it may be resolved into the infinite
rnirif I "ke to think of both these possibilities, and a third
v?z that the influence of one's life will continue to affect
fiture generations of mankind." -Scott :!oe.cif. _
"a «;tanlev Hall: " Thanatopsis and Immortality ;
Amef.jflfPsy.7wi5; Vol. XXVI; pages 579, 580, abbre-
viated.
304 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
along without it." And these friends and neighbors,
probably indifferent also, take a similar care not to
unsettle others in the belief they are supposed to
cherish. Thus, overgrown beliefs enjoy an existence
largely fictitious.
I have already given the percentage of those who
in my statistical investigation declare themselves in-
different to another life. From other sources I
glean the following instances : —
A man who at twenty-two was at the point of
death from disease, reports his sadness at the pros-
pect of leaving this world. Fear disturbed him very
little. He said, *' I want to live long enough to do
something in the world, but if Providence vetoes that
wish — * Let 'er go, Gallagher.' " The flippancy of
his attitude surprised and shocked him. Despite
this experience of nearness to death, he '* never could
get up interest enough in the future world to seek
for more knowledge." "
A Methodist, twenty years old, writes : —
** The problem of immortality has caused me no
uneasiness. I feel that if I get through this life I
will be doing pretty well. And so I let God take
care of the future. If I deserve eternal life, He be-
ing a just God, as I believe He is, will take care of
the future, and give eternal life." '*
These instances taken from the experience of per-
sons of ordinary intelligence can easily be matched
by others from men of distinction, as was already
shown in the discussion of the statistics. John Stu-
Scott. Loc. cit.; page 107.
Morse and Allen: Doc. cit.
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY? 305
art Mill did not feel a craving for an endless exist-
ence; and it seemed to him '' not only possible but
probable that in a higher, and, above all, a happier
condition of human life, not annihilation but im-
mortality " might be ''the burdensome idea
In the preface to Body and Mind, the English
psychologist, Wm. McDougall, states his attitude
thus : —
'' I can lay claim to no religious convictions; I am
not aware of any strong desire for any continuance
of my personality after death; and I could accept
with equanimity a thorough-going Materiahsm if
that seemed to me the inevitable outcome of a dis-
passionate and critical reflection. Nevertheless, I
am in sympathy with the religious attitude towards
life- and I should welcome the establishment of sure
empirical foundations for the belief that human per-
sonality is not wholly destroyed by death. For, as
was said above, I judge that this belief can only be
kept alive if a proof of it, or at least a presumption
in favor of it, can be furnished by the methods of
empirical science." '*
A lecturer on immortality admits similarly that he
does not happen to have '' the intense yearning that
many profess for an endless existence. He
writes : —
" I feel about a future life as one might feel in re-
gard to setting forth upon an untried voyage; for
example, to some distant star. So far as I have
confidence that I am a citizen of a rational universe,
'' The Utility of Religion, t5„„^ iq
- Body and Mind: New York; Macmillan; 1911. Page 13.
306 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
I can conceive that the unknown voyage will be
worth all the trouble it may cost. The venture stirs
my interest. But otherwise, I have little sense oi
clinging to life, merely in order to live." ''
And Renan, utterly skeptic about a future life,
provides us with this bit of beautiful prose : —
*' My experience of life has . . . been very pleas-
ant, and I do not think that there are any human
beings happier than I am. I have a keen liking for
the universe. . . . All that I have now to ask of the
good genius who has so often guided, advised, and
consoled me is a calm and sudden death, at my ap-
pointed hour, be it near or distant. . . . Suffering
degrades, humiliates, and leads to blasphemy.'' ''
Immortality as a Morally Inferior Belief. — Im-
mortality is not only abhorrent to many and unat-
tractive to a much larger number, but the desire for
it is condemned as morally inferior and reprehensi-
ble. This is a relatively new phase of the contro-
versy; it marks, it seems, the passage from the de-
fensive to the offensive on the part of the disbeliev-
ing moralists: the abandonment of the belief has
become for these a condition of the attainment of the
highest moral end. The insistency of great moral
and religious teachers, like Schleiermacher and
Tolstoi, upon the evil selfishness of the desire for
immortality, is noteworthy.
" The immortality that most men imagine and
their longing for it, seems to me irreligious, nay
*^ C. F. Dole: The Hope of Immortality ; Ingersoll Lecture
for 1906; New York; Crowell & Company. Page 61.
^* From the conclusion to Recollections of my Youth.
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY? 307
quite opposite to the spirit of piety. Dislike of the
very aim of Religion is the ground of their wish to
be immortal. Recall how Religion earnestly strives
to expand the sharp cut outlines of personality.
Gradually we are to be lost in the Infinite that we,
becoming conscious of the Universe, may as much as
possible be one with it. But men struggle against
this aim. They are anxious about their personality.
. . . The one opportunity that death gives them of
transcending it, they are very far from wishing to
embrace. On the contrary, they are concerned as
to how they are to carry it with them beyond this
life. . . . Would they but attempt to surrender their
lives from love of God! Would they but strive to
annihilate their personality to live in the One and
in the AllI"^'
Tolstoi was equally convinced with Scheiermacher
of the desirability, nay, the duty for a Christian to
renounce the wish for immortality. He did not ad-
mit that Christ had taught that belief : —
" As opposed to the personal life, Jesus taught us,
not a life beyond the grave, but that universal life
which comprises within itself the life of humanity,
past, present, and to come. . . . The entire doctrine
of Jesus inculcates renunciation of the personal, im-
aginary life, and a merging of this personal life in
the universal life of humanity, in the life of the son
of man. Now the doctrine of the individual immor-
tality of the soul does not impel us to renounce the
^'Speeches on Religion; Second speech; Tr. by John Or'
man: London: 1893. Pages 99-101.
S68 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
personal life ; on the contrary, it affirms the continu-
ance of individuals forever." '"
From certain members of the Ethical Culture So-
cieties come similar utterances : —
" We no longer need to believe that we shall rise
again, either with or without our bodies. We never
should have needed it, had our insight into the mean-
ing and bearings of the good life been clear and pen-
etrating. The modern recognition that moral faith
does not need the belief in a life after death is one of
the greatest achievements which the human spirit
has ever made. It is a discovery in the very spirit of
the New Testament, that enthusiasm for holiness is
not essentially dependent upon belief in the survival
either of the mind or body of any one after death." ''
Avowed materialists join hands with idealists in
enthusiastic affirmation of the sufficiency of earthly
life for the spiritual development and satisfaction of
man: —
** It will be seen that my philosophy is thoroughly
materialistic. I believe that man has been evolved
from lower forms of animal life, . . . that he will
continue along this road which he has traveled
through countless generations, and that this will
ultimately lead the race over the mountain tops and
into the promised land of human perfection. ... I
conceive the highest duty of the individual to con-
tribute his mite to the betterment of the whole. Sci-
ence teaches that what the man thinks, says and does
'"My Rdigion; chapter VIII.
^* Stanton Coit: National Idealism and the Book of Com-
mon pruyer; pages 147, 148. See on page xxx the view of
Professor Adler, the founder of the Ethical Culture Societies.
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY? 309
lives after him, and influences for good or ill future
generations. To me this is a higher, nobler and
greater incentive to righteousness than any hope of
personal reward or fear of punishment in a future
life. I believe that this is a glorious world, full of
great opportunities to the individual, and of unlim-
ited promise of development in the race. Life car-
ries in itself the highest duties, the performance of
which should not be regarded as tasks to be shirked
if possible or to be done reluctantly, but to be car-
ried on with a spirit of thankfulness that it has fall-
en to the lot of the individual to be a participant in
the great and glorious work of contributing to the
uplift of the race. To widen the domain of knowl-
edge, be it ever so little, to abate disease, to lessen
pain and suffering, to decrease the burden of pov-
erty, to brighten and ennoble the lives of others . . .
these are some of the things that science has done
and is doing. To be even an humble and un-
known worker in the great army of men who are
doing these things is a privilege which should make
glad the heart of any man." "
The poets also, dreamers of beautiful dreams, find
on earth what only heaven was thought to offer : —
" O, may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence: live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge man's search
To vaster issues." "'
"Victor C. Vaughan: "The Philosophy of Science";
Science; 1912; Vol. XXXVI, page 233.
810 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
The cry of fear at the disaster supposed to impend
from the loss of the belief in immortality will find
little echo in those who possess the fuller knowledge
of human nature hinted at in the preceding brief
notes. The least that must be granted, is, it seems,
that the general and final effect of the loss of the
belief is an open question, and that a gain resulting
from it is one of the possible outcomes.
Present Causes of the Desire for Immortalitij. —
There is no exact correspondence between the causes
commonly assigned to the desire for immortality and
the actual facts. The demand for a compensation
for the injustice of this life, for instance, has been
vastly magnified by theorists. An exactly balanced
account is not what man requires. Whether we re-
gard this as praiseworthy generosity or as blame-
worthy indifference to justice, it remains that the
belief in immortality is but rarely prompted or sup-
ported by a desire that justice shall be done. That
that desire did not exercise a controlling influence in
the establishment of the belief is evidenced by the
form of the orthodox conception itself. Where is the
mortal who has deserved an eternity of happiness or
of torments? No evil doing, even though prolonged
throughout a lifetime, can be fairly punished by
endless suffering. We are apparently ready to treat
with the Universe on a freer basis than exact retri-
bution; it is happiness rather than justice that we
want.
The utility of immortality as a " safeguard of
*' George Eliot. See also The Earth and Man, and A
Faith on Trial of Meredith.
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY? 311
morality," is another of the much overstated motives
of that belief. It is surprising to find how relatively
small is the influence of immortality as a sanction of
right conduct. Should the reader ask his friends
what they think of this, he would be told, probably
by the majority, that the belief in heaven and hell is
one of great and general power over conduct. But
should he ask the more pointed question, '' Of what
service is it to you?" he would get information in
striking contradiction to the first statement. He
would hear that most of them never, or only on rare
occasions, refer to the consequences of their actions
upon life after death; other considerations guide
them. This fact, many are loath to admit because
of the prestige of the orthodox opinion.
It is a noteworthy indication of the course of hu-
man development that the higher the intellectual and
moral level attained, the less does the influence of
personal immortality upon conduct make itself felt.
We have just seen that many of the most distin-
guished moralists condemn the belief as ethically
wrong. But much can be and is made of it among
benighted Christian populations.
The desire for immortality finds its main support
neither in a sense of justice, nor in the need of an
ethical sanction, but in the yearnings of the heart for
the maintenance of the bonds of love and friendship,
and in the desire to think highly of oneself and the
Universe. This last motive rises to great influence
only in persons of considerable moral and intellect-
ual distinction. It is the form assumed by the innate
tendency to self-preservation and increase when it
312 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
has undergone the enlarging influence of philosoph-
ical thought. The annihilation of the priceless
riches which life represents and, as it seems to many,
the consequent futility and irrationality of earthly
existence are unbearable thoughts. Man might be-
come reconciled to the loss at death of his personal-
ity provided human life might still be regarded as of
eternal significance. One of the persons already
quoted writes : —
" We do wish to be able to respect the world we
live in, and we could hardly respect a universe that
created a Socrates, a Michel Angelo, or an Epictetus
only to destroy him, as the early gods are reputed to
have devoured their own offspring.
" This brings me frankly to confess to a certain
bias. I own that the more I know about life, the
more I desire to discover rationality in it. I had
rather be a citizen for even a brief period in a sig-
nificant and intelligent world than to live forever in
a meaningless world. I had rather be able to look
out for one day on the possibilities of an infinite uni-
verse than to possess millenniums circumscribed
within bounds of time and place. I cannot help this
kind of bias. It seems to be involved in the nature
of mind. Other men gladly make the same confes-
sion. Here is one of the facts of human nature that
thought has to reckon with.'' '*
Darwin struggled with a similar difficulty : —
" Believing as I do that man in the distant future
will be a far more perfect creature than he now is
'* C. F. Dole: The Hope of Immortality; IngersoU Lecture,
1906. Pages 4-9.
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY? 313
[because of the operation of the laws of natural and
sex selection], it is an intolerable thought that he
and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete
annihilation after such long-continued slow prog-
ress." "
But personal immortality is probably not the only
possible way by which the rationality of the universe
can be vindicated. Dole himself would be content to
relinquish personal immortality provided the '' im-
mortality of influence " were the best use to which
he could be put. Darwin likewise could, I think, have
found contentment in an assurance of the continua-
tion, not of each individual, but of the race in which
the progress of all is embodied. The passage quoted
was written under the impression produced upon
him by the affirmation of physicists that in a meas-
urable time the sun would grow too cold to maintain
life ; and he was thinking less of the living individ-
uals than of the " far more perfect creature " which,
according to his theory, nature could not fail to pro-
duce.
To Felix Adler, racial continuation would be in-
sufficient ; yet he also could be satisfied without the
persistence of the conscious self involved in the
Christian belief. He finds in his consciousness the
assurance that " our moral ideal is destined to be
realized, though we may not know how it will be
realized.'*
" Vast possibilities suggest themselves to us of an
order of existence wholly different from all that we
*' From his Autobiography, as quoted by his son in Charles
Darwin: London; 1902. Page 61,
314 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
have ever known ; what may be the nature of that
other life it is impossible to know and it is useless
to speculate. Such terms as consciousness, individ-
uality, even personality, are but finite screens which
give no adequate clew to the infinite for which they
stand. Only this I feel warranted in holding fast to
— that the root of my selfhood, the best that is in me,
my true and only being, cannot perish. In regard to
that the notion of death seems to me to be irrele-
vant.^' "
Our ignorance with respect to ultimate problems
is so profound that we may not regard the demand
for the rationality of the Universe as implying une-
quivocally a demand for personal immortality. Of
the two desires to which we have ascribed the pre-
ponderant role in the maintenance of the present
belief, only that for the continuance of love and
friendship can be gratified in no other way than by a
survival involving continuation of the sense of iden-
tity. The violence of this desire is well known, yet I
may quote this heart-rending cry of a young wife
recently bereft of her husband. She was an intimate
friend of Schleiermacher, and to him she turned in
the hour of her distress : —
" 0 Schleier, in the midst of my sorrow there are
yet blessed moments when I vividly feel what a love
ours was, and that surely this love is eternal, and it
is impossible that God can destroy it; for God him-
self is love. I bear this life while nature will ; for I
-"Life and Destiny: New York; McClure, Phillips, and
Company; 1903. Pages 35-39, abbreviated. See for a more
recent statement, in An Ethical Philosophy of Life; Apple-
ton and Company, 1918. Page 359.
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY? 315
have still work to do for the children, his and mine :
but 0 God ! with >vhat longings, what f oreshadow-
ings of unutterable blessedness, do I gaze across into
that world where he lives! What joy for me to die!
" Schleier, shall I not find him again ? 0 my God !
I implore you, Scheier, by all that is dear to God
and sacred, give me, if you can, the certain assur-
ance of finding and knowing him again. Tell me
your inmost faith on this, dear Schleier; Oh! if it
fails, I am undone. It is for this that I live, for this
that I submissively and quietly endure : this is the
only outlook that sheds a light on my dark life, — to
find him again, to live for him again. 0 God! he
cannot be destroyed! " "
To this appeal the great interpreter of religion to
whom, more perhaps than to any one else, contem-
porary theolog\^ has looked for guidance, could not
give the longed for answer.
There is, I believe, no other so frequent cause of
an effective belief in immortality as the loss by death
of a loved person. But the desire for the continua-
tion of those we love is, in itself, in no way a guar-
antee of its realization. It is only when the exist-
ence of a purposive, benevolent Creator is assumed
that it can be argued with some degree of assurance
that the presence of this desire implies its gratifica-
tion. Again here, however, that which to our lim-
ited vision seems necessary may not be so.
The fundamental illogicalness of man is well
shown in the east with which even men of culture
'^ From Schleiermacher's Leben, as quoted by James Mar-
tineau in A Study of Religion; Vol. II, page 337.
316 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
pass directly from the desire to the belief. I have
already had occasion, when dealing with the origin
of the modern conception, to mention the striking
effect upon Cicero of the death of his beloved and
only daughter. Here are a few instances, taken
from among our contemporaries, of the direct influ-
ence of feeling upon belief : —
'' My beliefs in the future life and in recognition
after death have been strengthened by the death of
my little boy ; I know that this is no intellectual evi-
dence, but it is evidence that any heart will weigh
before rejecting; ... I see no reason why my love
for my dead boy, and my desire to be reunited to
him may not postulate the very existence of the ob-
jects towards which they are directed.'*
" During the funeral of my father, I felt for the
first time a certainty of meeting him again; about
seventeen the question of immortality was a favorite
subject of reflection and reading; I became more and
more satisfied that there was a life beyond, although
nobody could demonstrate it ; this was a spiritual but
visualized existence ; I saw myself with dear friends
and with the great and good of all ages ; wondered if
Socrates and Homer would care enough for me to
allow me to be near them. The death of a near
friend a year ago has profoundly affected my life ; it
seems as if a part of myself is gone and that I shall
never recover my wholeness until I am with him
again.' *'
" These last two quotations are taken from Scott: Loc.
cit.; pages 106, 107. They come from men aged respectively
31, and 26 years,
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY? 317
" When sorrow and death have come into my life,
I have felt the necessity of believing in another
world. The desire to make human love eternal is
with me the most characteristically religious feeling.
. . . Formerly, before I suffered, I never experienced
it. My indifference to the religious point of view
was absolute." ''
The great biologist, Henri Pasteur, often offered
as a conspicuous instance of the possible marriage of
science and faith in the Christian dogmas, tells in a
letter to Sainte-Beuve and again in a speech before
the Academie de Medecine why he believes in immor-
tality : —
" My philosophy is of the heart and not of the
mind, and I give myself up, for instance, to those
feelings about eternity which come naturally at the
bedside of a cherished child drawing its last breath."
" There are two men in each one of us : the scien-
tist, he who starts with a clear field and desires to
rise to the knowledge of Nature through observation,
experimentation, and reasoning; and the man of sen-
timent, the man of belief, the man who mourns his
dead children and who cannot, alas, prove that he
will see them again, but who believes that he will,
and lives in that hope; . . . the man who feels that
the force that is within him cannot die." "
I may remark incidentally upon the off-hand man-
ner in which Pasteur divides life into two spheres,
that of science and that of feeling, and apparently
finds no use for logic and reason in the latter. This
"* From the Appendix to Lucian Arreat's Lc Sentiment
Religieux en France: Paris; Alcan; 1903.
318 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
is a shocking example of a dangerous practice which,
when carried to its logical consequence, would per-
mit one to believe whatever he pleases. When I at-
tempt to understand this attitude in a distinguished
man of science, I can only conjecture that he treated
religion as something primarily intended to comfort
anyway, anyhoiv. So that, just as a mother might
feel free to say anything to her sick child, provided
she cheers him, so one may affirm ** religiouswise "
anything it pleases us to believe.
In order to appreciate correctly the influence of
love and affection upon the belief in immortality, one
should consider not only the common intensity of
these feelings but also the distressing ease with
which we forget and grow indifferent. Love and
affection for the dead are, while they last, powerful
incentives to belief in an endless existence; but
tender feeling, like all other feelings, is weakened
by time. When middle age is past and old
age approaches, feelings have frequently lost too
much of their energy to lift man above mundane ex-
istence. Does not human frailty permit us to go
further and admit, for instance, that schleier-
macher's friend may have remarried? In that oc-
currence her former yearnings for another life
might have been replaced by dread of the time when
she would be face to face with two husbands. This
is one of the many situations which account for the
practice upon which I have commented of refusing
to treat heaven realistically.
'" I take these passages from E. D. Adams; This Life and
the Next; page 239.
CHAPTER XII
THE SOCIAL ORIGIN OF MORAL IDEAS AND
INSPIRATION AND THE UTILITY OF
TRANSCENDENTAL BELIEFS
The official representatives of religious systems
are filled with apprehension at the thought of the
possible loss of the beliefs in a personal God and
immortality. Yet, the only real danger is created,
I think, by their misunderstanding of the origin of
moral ideals and energy. It is because of this mis-
understanding that they regard the loss of these be-
liefs as a calamity. Were their opinion to be gen-
erally accepted, a fatal feeling of degradation and of
helplessness would benumb those who find them-
selves compelled to relinquish these beliefs. As a
matter of fact, the threat of impending disaster,
although far from universally felt, overshadows the
sky of those among the orthodox believers who are
not altogether blind to the religious transformation
now in progress, and it deprives many doubters of
the hopeful energy' with which they would otherwise
meet the uncertainty of their situation.'
It is, therefore, of the greatest practical impor-
tance that those who have become convinced of the
^ See, for instance, case IV, of investigation A, page. . . . ;
also, as an instance of human devotion as a source of moral
renovation in the absence of religion, Francis Younghus-
band: Thoughts During Convalescence, 1914; and Mutual
Influence: a Review of Religion; 1915.
319
320 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
absence of sufficient grounds for these two beliefs
and of their apparently unavoidable disappearance if
humanity continues in its present course, realize that
morality is essentially independent of them. They
must know with the clearness that brings persua-
sion that moral ideals and moral energy have their
source in social life ; that, as participants in the life
of a family and of wider social groups, men draw
directly at the original fount of moral discrimina-
tion and inspiration.
I have attempted, after many others, to place that
truth beyond debate, first by pointing out, in an
earlier volume how the god-ideas came into exist-
ence, then by showing in Part I of the present book
how the conceptions of immortality arose and how
man contrived to use these ideas in order to further
earth-born social and individual ideals.' The statis-
tics of Part II seem to support the proposition which
a study of the origin of morality establishes regard-
ing the relation of religious belief to morality. For
there exists not the slightest reliable information
permitting the supposition that in those statistics
the morally better men are those constituting the be-
lieving minority. The correlation, in every one of
the groups investigated, of disbelief with eminence,
can on the contrary be made to lend support to the
contention of many of our contemporaries, admired
'See on the origin of moral ideas, L. T. Hothouse: Morals
in Evolution; A. Sutherland: The Origin and Growth of the
Moral Instinct; and E. A. Westermarck: The Origin and
Development of the Moral Ideas. Wm. McDougall's Social
l'-*sychology, and Alexander Shand's The Foundations of Char-
acter are excellent contributions to the understanding of the
nature and development of character.
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY? 321
for their talents and venerated for their devotion to
humanity, that at present these beliefs are hin-
drances to spiritual progress.
However that may be, the fundamental independ-
ence of morality from the cardinal beliefs of the
existing religions appears vividly in the direct obser-
vation of the moral life, as it unfolds itself about us
in the family and in the wider social groups. Our
alleged essential dependence upon transcendental
beliefs is belied by the most common experiences of
daily life. Who does not feel the absurdity of the
opinion that the lavish care for a sick child by a
mother is given because of a belief in God and im-
mortality? Are love of father and mother on the
part of children, affection and serviceableness be-
tween brothers and sisters, straightforwardness and
truthfulness between business men essentially de-
pendent upon these beliefs? What sort of person
would be the father who would announce divine
punishment or reward in order to obtain the love
and respect of his children ? And if there are busi-
ness men preserved from unrighteousness by the
fear of future punishment, those who are deterred
by the threat of human law, are far more numer-
ous. Most of them would take their chances with
heaven a hundred times before they would once with
society, or perchance with the imperative voice of
humanity heard in the conscience.
On what do our political leaders rely when they
wish to rouse the public conscience and bring about
vital improvements? On the thought of God and im-
mortality? How absurd the idea! The Hebrew
322 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
prophets threatened social and political calamities
at the hand of Yahweh, because they actually be-
lieved in Yahweh's government of Israel. Our po-
litical prophets also threaten national calamities,
but not at the hand of the Christian God, for we no
longer really believe in his intervention.' Yet, our
conviction of the necessity and of the possibility of
moral amendment is no less firm, and the joy of
success no less keen.
The heroism of religious martyrs is often flaunted
as marvelous instances of the unique sustaining
strength derived from the belief in a personal God
and in the anticipation of heaven. And yet, for every
martyr of this sort, there has been one or more
heroes who has risked his life for a noble cause,
without the comfort which transcendental beliefs
may bring. The very present offers almost count-
less instances of martyrs to the cause of humanity
who were strangers to the idea of God and immor-
tality. How many men and women have in the past
decade gladly offered and not infrequently lost their
lives in the cause of freedom, or justice, or science?
' Of the sense of a real, immediate dependence upon a
personal divinity, there remain in Christian states but a few
pitiable remnants. In the United States the most conspicu-
ous one is the yearly proclamation of a Day of Thanksgiving
by which the members of the nation are called upon to return
thanks to God for the good that has fallen to their lot and
that of the country during the year. From an expression of
genuine belief, this custom has become a tradition objection-
able because it diverts the attention of man from those fac-
tors of prosperity which he can control to those he cannot.
It were better, instead, that we should be taught to realize
our dependence upon each other and the gratitude we owe
to the millions who strive, often in material and moral dis-
tress, in order to build our material and spiritual prosperity.
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY 323
In the monstrous war we are now witnessing, is
there a less heroic defense of home and nation, and
less conscious self-renunciation for the sake of
others among the non-believers than among the pro-
fessed Christians? Have modern Christian nations
shown a more intense or a purer patriotism than
ancient Greek or Rome where men did not pretend
to derive inspiration for their deeds of devotion in
the thought of their gods? Cicero, mediocre though
he was in point of private virtue, expected of every
man, at the call of country, the sacrifice of life and
reputation.
Nothing could be more evident than that the ap-
proval of God and the assurance of eternal happi-
ness are not original motives for the generosity with
which man offers up his life. The fruitful deeds of
heroism are at bottom inspired not by the thought of
God and of a future life, but by innate tendencies or
promptings that have reference to humanity. Self-
sacrifice, generosity, is rooted in nothing less super-
ficial and accidental than social instincts older than
the human race, for they are already present in a
rudimentary form in the higher animals."
When it is granted, as it must be, that the knowl-
edge and the practice of the virtues do not have their
original source in transcendental beliefs, it may still
be claimed that as mere auxiliaries to the moral life
the beliefs in God and immortality cannot be dis-
* Among recent instances of the manifestation of these
social instincts, stand out the devotion of the physicians and
nurses of the Red Cross in Servia, many of whom lost their
lives in heroic efforts to save that unhappy country from
decimating diseases.
324 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
pensed with without grave prejudice to humanity;
that we cannot with impunity go counter to these
manifestations of the empirical wisdom of mankind.
What then, in the most civilized Christian nations,
is the value of these beliefs? In answer to this
query I can do no more than add certain brief con-
siderations to the cumulative significance of the facts
brought forward in the preceding pages. It is now
generally admitted that one cannot moralize by ex-
ternal compulsion. Preventing a man from commit-
ting murder by mere fear of the gallows or a child
from lying by mere threat of punishment, serves a
purpose, but that purpose is not their moral im-
provement. No more can anyone be made generous
by being compelled or enticed to open his purse. In
order to do more than prevent murder and theft,
more than secure money for the poor, the murderer
and the child must be made to realize the wickedness
of their desires, and in the heart of the giver must
be awakened true charity.
In so far as God and immortality stand for ex-
ternal reward and punishment, they have, it will be
agreed, no truly moralizing value ; they may merely
prevent some evil and compel som.e good. But even
in this respect, the social sanctions are, in the great
majority of instances, much more effective than the
divine. By social sanctions we should not, of course,
think merely of the law, but also of the enormous
restraining and encouraging influences exerted by
friends, family, and public opinion. Every one
realizes what a catastrophe would follow the re-
moval of these social restraints even though God and
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY? 325
immortality should continue to exert the attenuated
influence remaining to them.
But, it is urged, the ideas of God and immortality
do not act merely as external checks and encourage-
ments. When God is an object of reverence and
love, the desire to make his will one's own gives to
the belief a truly moralizing power. True as this
remark is, its real import appears only when we
know how we become acquainted with, and learn to
value the perfections that are in God. There is no
simpler nor better statement of the origin of the love
of God than the well known Biblical passage, *' If a
man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is
a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he
hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not
seen." In the education of the young, as well as in
the reformation of the warped adult, the truth of
this is ever seen anew. It is love of man that con-
vinces child and hardened sinner alike of the love
of God.
We are now, fortunately, almost done with the
absurd tradition that formal religion is the essen-
tial means of moral education. We have discovered
and are confirming daily that success in moral edu-
cation depends essentially upon the measure in which
one is able to replace artificial or distant reward and
punishment by the natural consequences, or by the
clear realization of the natural consequences of ac-
tion ; and upon the measure in which freedom can be
granted, in surroundings offering the richest pos-
sible opportunity for the discovery and appreciation
of the significance of conduct. Belief in transcen-
326 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
dental objects, bearers of perfection, is of no greater
value in artistic education than in ethical culture;
it is in the contemplation of beautiful objects present
to the senses that we learn to know and love the
beautiful, and in the presence of noble characters
and fine conduct that we learn to know and love the
good/
Those who exaggerate the usefulness of the beliefs
in immortality and in God, conceived as the perfect
embodiment of all the values discovered on earth,
fail to realize the inherent disadvantages of these be-
liefs. The evils they breed may be called by the gen-
eral name of " otherworldliness." It would be diffi-
cult to evaluate the harm done to humanity in the
past by the conviction that the real destination of
man is the world to come. A sincere belief in the
Christian God to whom the behever is to be united
in heaven is an unavoidable cause of detachment
from this life. The instances offered in contradic-
tion, great mystics like St. Francis of Assisi, or St.
Theresa, who have displayed an intense and efficient
activity, do not at all prove what one would like to
demonstrate by their example. They lacked it is true
neither energy nor devotion, but the direction of their
zeal, the aim they set before themselves, was clearly
open to the objection I raise against the influence
of transcendental beliefs: they spent themselves
heroically not in order to prepare, like far-sighted
statesmen, the coming of peace and universal hap-
^ These principles are the corner stones of the educational
system of the New Schools (Landerziehungsheim, Ecoles
Nouvelles), and the hope of the new management of reform
institutions.
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY? 327
piness on earth, but to fit men and women for heaven
— the difference is notable. I know religious life
too favorably to insinuate that those who preach the
Kingdom of Heaven are enemies of mankind, but I
think that on the whole they would serve it better
were they able to forget not only hell but also heaven.
There is always some discrepancy between that
which is best for the God of the Christian worship
and life in heaven, and that which is best for the in-
dividual and society on earth : one cannot serve per-
fectly man and the traditional God.
If in the Christian church the evil of otherworld-
liness is to-day less conspicuous than in the past,
it is in the proportion in which these traditional
beliefs have lost their ancient impressiveness, i. e.,
in the proportion in which the Church has been
humanized.
I may add that the atmosphere of doubt surround-
ing the Christian beliefs with which we are con-
cerned, coexisting as it does with creeds that affirm
their truth and with a worship that implies it, cre-
ates in the upper intellectual circles of the Churches,
and more particularly among professors and stud-
ents of theology, a situation threatening the most
precious possession of teachers and students : their
intellectual integrity.
Those who continue to think that humanity can-
not proceed on its ascending march unless ultimate
questions are answered in the formulae given when
the world was in its childhood, evince an unjustifia-
ble lack of faith in man.
328 GOD AND IMMORTALITY
But, we are asked, How shall the untenable be-
liefs be replaced? The first question to be raised is
rather, What is the practical necessity of replacing
them ? Our understanding, of life has now proceeded
far enough for us to know that the solution of ulti-
mate problems is not practically necessary; this is
indeed a fortunate discovery. We should free our-
selves from the conceited and false notion that the
most important requirement of existence is a phi-
losophy setting forth adequate solutions of the prob-
lems of origin and destiny. The unquenchable crav-
ings for omniscience and moral perfection are
crowning glories of man, and nothing is better worth
cherishing; but the conviction that we must know
whence we come and whither we are going, and that
we must possess the assurance of a complete realiza-
tion of our ideals on earth or elsewhere in order to
lead a contented and worthy existence, is childish
and mischievous. If I add that giving up the ex-
pectation of perfection will not materially alter the
craving for it, I shall only be stating a fact made
obvious by experience.
On every hand, in individual as well as in national
life, numberless facts proclaim that human nature is
better adapted to the circumstances of existence
than to require, under threat of dissolution, the
solution of ultimate problems. The revelations that
come to man disclose ever proximate goals, and
each new step means a new revelation. A purpose,
in order to stir man to his depths, need not be
infinitely great ; he will risk his all, or he will live in
a tremor of happy expectation for a trifle; he will
WHAT IS THEIR UTILITY? 329
walk as well and perhaps better when, instead of
aiming to scale Mount Blanc, he ascends a hill ; two
hundred miles is as far to his eyes as two hundred
thousand. To have observed that human society
generates moral ideals together with impulses and
desires to realize them, is, whatever our theories
about them, sufficient for practical life. To have
gained that knowledge is to have secured ground
unshakeable by any philosophy.
Do I mean that the discussion of ultimate ques-
tions should be given up? It would be both absurd
and useless to ask those who recognize the presence
in human society of spiritual forces, to refrain from
seeking to know whence they proceed and whither
they tend. It is not against metaphysical specula-
tion in general, or even principally against any par-
ticular solution of ultimate problems that I contend,
but against the dangerous conviction that some par-
ticular solution — and, in the instance that has
occupied us, a solution inherited from another age
and demonstrably in disagreement with the best
thinking of the times — is necessary to the well be-
ing of humanity. That is a false and a dangerous
conviction. He has a sufficient living creed who can
affirm that moral forces actually come into existence
in human society, and that its welfare and the indi-
vidual's self-approval and self-respect are, as a mat-
ter of fact, indissolubly bound with the fulfillment of
the moral demands.
INDEX OF NAMES
Adams, E. D., 177, 318. Dall, W. H., 22.
Adler, Felix, 313. Darwin, Charles, 312.
Allen (Morse and ), Dechelette, J., 3, 4, 6.
181 297 304. Delitzsch, Friedrich, 96.
Arreat, Lucien, 317. Dole, C. F., 306, 312.
Durkheim, Emil, 7, 24,
Bacon, Edward E., 151- 30, 56-58, 75, 80.
153.
Bancroft, H. H., 120. Eliot, George, 310.
Beer, Georg, 86. Emerson, Ralph Waldo,
Bois,' Henri, 239. 291.
Boissier, Gaston, 53. Erman, A., 111.
Breasted, J. H., 64, 93, ^
94 11^ Feuerbach Ludwig, 81.
Brinton, Daniel, 120. Fiske, John, 145-146.
Brown, Wm. A., 148, 170. Flournoy, Th., 146.
Budde, Karl, 85, 113. Fowler, W. Ward, 88-89.
97, 102.
Carter J. B. 84, 115. Frazer, J. G., 1, 12, 13-
Charle's, R. H., 39, 106. 14, 17-19, 20, 32-36,
Cicero, 53, 102. 62.
Clodd, Edward, 55. Frazer, A. C, 136.
Codrington, R. H., 12,
Ql Galton, Sir F., 285.
Coit,* Stanton, 308. Gardiner, Alan H., 107.
Courtier, Jules, 158. Gillen ( and Spen-
Crawley, Ernest, 53, 80. cer), 8, 20, 54.
331
332
INDEX
Gladden, Rev. Washing-
ton, 148.
Grote, 137-138.
Harrison, Jane, 87.
Hall, G. Stanley, 296,
303.
Hegel, 131.
Hobbes, 52-53.
Hyslop, James, 163, 167.
James, William, 159,
167-168.
Janet, Pierre, 299.
Jastrow, Morris, 38, 95,
104.
Kant, Immanuel, 136.
Kingsley, Mary H., 25,
43.
Lang, Andrew, 88.
Levy-Bruhl, 16, 23, 26-
28.
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 136.
Lotze, Hermann, 134,
135.
Marti, Karl, 89, 97.
Martineau, James, 139.
Matthews, John, 20,
McDougall, William, 305,
320.
McTaggart, John, 148.
Mill, John Stuart, 132,
305.
Moon, Conard, E. L., 21,
23, 36.
Mooney, James, 54.
Morse ( and Allen),
181, 297, 304.
Muller, Max, 204.
Munger, Rev. Theodore,
150-151.
Pasteur, Henri, 317.
Plato, 116, 119.
Podmore, Frank, 165,
168.
Reinach, Salomon, 5.
Renan, Ernest, 307.
Rohde, Erwin, 86, 117-
119, 123.
Schiller, F. C. S., 141,
181, 182-183, 295, 302,
303.
Schleiermacher, Fried-
rich, 306-307.
Scott, Colin A., 66, 300,
304, 316.
Seth, Andrew, 132, 140.
Spencer ( and Gil-
len), 8, 20, 52, 67,
INDEX
333
Spinoza, 134, 138-139.
Swinburne, Algernon,
298.
Symonds, John A., 298.
Tabrum, Arthur H., 177,
179, 180, 181.
Theresa, Saint, 48.
Tolstoi, Leo, 307.
Turner, George, 35.
Tylor, E. B., 46, 52.
Vaughan, Victor C, 309.
Warren, Henry C, 300.
Westermarck, E., 40.
Wiedemann, A., 65, 92.
Wobbermin, Georg, 150.
Younghusband, F., 319.
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